BOOK REVIEWS

Stavanger Museum Årbok 1992 [1992 Year• shipping. Indeed, in some years as much as book of the Stavanger Museum]. Stavanger, eighty percent of herring exports to the Baltic Norway: Stavanger Museum, 1993. 220 pp., were carried in Stavanger-owned vessels. maps, figures, photographs, English sum• When the trade declined after 1870, Stavanger maries. NOK 100, paper; ISBN 82-90054-33- and its shipping also entered a prolonged 1; ISSN 0333-0656. period of stagnation. Hamre supports his lucid discussion with As befits an institution in a city with both a maps, figures and tables that present a wealth proud sea-going past and a prosperous mari• of data and illustrate his major points well. time present, the Stavanger Museum has The only significant problem is that he sel• always been interested in publishing papers dom attempts to explain what he observes. with a marine orientation in its Yearbook. The Although Hamre calls this a "reconnaissance," fact that the Stavanger Maritime Museum, the fact that it is in some ways a preliminary which ranks among Scandinavia's best, is one essay does not obviate his responsibility to try of its components gives it an edge in solicit• to explain at least some of what he observes. ing such articles. The 1992 edition continues In particular, I would have welcomed a dis• this tradition with a fifty-five page essay by cussion of what comparative advantages Sta• Harald Hamre, the former Director of the vanger had in the trade compared to its princi• Maritime Museum who now occupies a simi• pal domestic rival, Bergen. Tackling such lar post in the larger establishment. Although questions would have strengthened the article. "Norway's Baltic Herring Trade in the Nine• Although Hamre's portrait of this signifi• teenth Century" is the only maritime paper in cant trade will be useful to many maritime this year's volume, it provides an excellent historians, of special interest is his use of data rationale for maritime historians to consult the from the former Soviet Union. Rather than book. Those lacking a reading knowledge of relying solely on domestic sources, as most Norwegian will not be able to use that as an Norwegian historians of export trades tend to excuse, since there is a competent English do, he has utilized customs records for Per- summary and many of the figures and dia• nau, Reval and Narva to flesh out his account. grams have English as well as Norwegian While this is one of the first published studies captions and explanations. to use such data since the Baltic states gained Hamre's essay is a fine overview of the their independence, historians who read it are spring herring trade from the west coast. This certain to recognize the richness of the was Norway's most important export in the material awaiting examination in Latvia, first half of the century and virtually the only Lithuania and Estonia. There are a variety of Norwegian commodity in demand in the other maritime routes, including the British Baltic. From about 1840 Stavanger was the coal trade, which would benefit from such most important port in this commerce, and the evidence. If Harald Hamre's essay sensitizes prospect of carrying herring was the principal scholars to this resource and stimulates at motivation for local entrepreneurs to invest in least a few to exploit it, the 1992 issue of the

63 64 The Northern Mariner

Yearbook will have more than served its experts who were willing to do their best for purpose. the users of the book. To a large extent, this seemingly hopeless task was achieved. Where Lewis R. Fischer there are shortcomings, it is the informant and St. John's, Newfoundland not the compiler who should be blamed. Take for example the institution where I work. The Norman J. Brouwer. International Register of Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum owns aSeehund Historic Ships. 2nd. ed.; Sea History Press in Type Midget Submarine which is not incor• association with the Mystic Seaport Museum, porated in the register. Our whale catcher Rau 1985, 1993 [order from: Publications Dept., IX was converted into a submarine chaser and Mystic Seaport Museum, 75 Greenmanville served as a mine sweeper before she sailed as Avenue, Mystic, CT 06355 USA]. 392 pp., a whale catcher under the Norwegian flag photographs, appendices, bibliography, index. between 1948 and 1968. Such information US $57.75, cloth; ISBN 0-930248-04-X; US would have been very useful since it had im• $37.75, paper; ISBN 0-930248-05-8. portant consequences for the superstructure. Only recently she was restored to the appear• Eight years after this highly acclaimed list of ance she would have had when she was built historic ships first appeared, Norman Brou• in 1939. Still another of the main exhibits in wer, marine historian at the South Street the museum is the central section of the 1881 Seaport Museum in New York, has completed river paddle steamer Meissen, with an oscilla• an even more complete directory of the tion steam-engine. She would have fitted world's preserved historic ships. Enlarged by ideally into Appendix 3. seventy pages, the new register contains data The saddest chapter in the book is that on on over 1,300 ships in fifty-two countries, the Falkland Islands. The pictures of seven while its predecessor only mentioned 700 vessels are reproduced, all wrecks. Let us vessels in forty-three countries. A few ships hope that some will find foster-parents and have been added to the second edition because will be saved in the near future. However, the cut-off year was altered from 1945 to good news from the Falklands reached me 1955 (all ships had to be a minimum size of while writing this review. The ex-Feuerland, forty feet overall length of complete hulls). built as an exploration vessel in Germany in Even so, most of the new ships were built 1927, is still in use under her new name before the old cut-off year, indicating an Penelope, serving Bob and John Ferguson on increased interest in preserving historic ships. Weddell Island as a cattle transporter. The foreword to the new edition was Extremely useful are Brouwer's appen• written by the Duke of Edinburgh, himself a dices. The list of vessels by type shows that ship enthusiast and patron of the Maritime "sailing vessels - fore & aft rig - cargo" with Trust. He praises the tribute paid in the pref• 193 ships head the list. Anyone thinking of ace by Peter Stanford, the president of the preserving a vessel will have to consult that National Maritime Historical Society, to the list in order to establish the importance of a late Frank Carr and to Karl Kortum. To both ship type, since it is essential that gaps be men the world's lovers of historic ships are filled. It is extremely costly to preserve and deeply indebted. The preparation of such a restore a ship. So it may be helpful to know book for publication can only be mastered by that a certain type is a rare or even a unique a man with Herculean powers. In order to example of the maritime past. collect all relevant information and to put it Like Lloyd's Register, Brouwer's Register all together in a somewhat uniform way, even is a most valuable directory for every mari• though he was unable to inspect all ships, a time historian and ship lover throughout the standardized questionnaire was distributed to world. I am sure that a third edition will be Book Reviews 65 published after a few more years, perhaps in• deals with real vessels. It goes beyond the cluding replicas of historic ships like the theoretical and centres on the actual construc• Kieler cog or the Endeavour, launched recent• tion features found on extant archaeological ly in Fremantle, Australia. specimens or existing modem vessels. The thirty-one papers in the publication Lars U. Scholl have been organized into three sections: Bremerhaven, Germany Historical Development, Local Craft, and Short Reports on Current Research. The Reinder Reinders and Kees Paul (eds.). Carvel chronological arrangement of the papers on Construction Technique: Fifth International Historical Development provides an evol• Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology, utionary perspective on the subject. Whether Amsterdam 1988. Oxbow Monograph 12; by design or accident, the four papers on Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1991. 194 pp., fig• Dutch vessels (Green, Oosting, Hoving and ures, photographs, maps. US $42, paper; Gawronski) were grouped together to form a ISBN 0-946897-34-4. Distributed in Canada coherent sub-section that highlights develop• and the United States by David Brown Book ments from a single geographic region. A Company, Bloomington, IN. similar grouping is found for a number of papers on Roman boatbuilding although the This book presents the proceedings from the geographical spread is much larger. Leh• Fifth ISBSA Symposium and focuses on mann's paper on variations in Roman boat• carvel building techniques, although clinker building suffers from a difficult translation building practices are also covered. The book, while Arnold's contribution on the Bevaix as a whole, considers the problem of the tran• boat is nearly incomprehensible. On the other sition from shell-first to frame-first construc• hand, Hôckman presents an interesting case tion techniques and when, where, why and for the mass production of Roman Danube how this might have occurred. The subject vessels. matter is vast geographically, chronologically Many of the papers offer mainly straight• and typologically. The focus is clearly Euro• forward technical descriptions of the vessels pean but there are contributions bearing on under study; a few go further and advance the the Mediterranean, North and South America field with significant insights derived from as well as Australia. The time period covered their data. The authors of these papers clearly ranges from the Bronze Age to modem times. took great care in preparing their texts and in Typologically, the contributors consider selecting their illustrations: Steffy's presenta• everything from small inland craft to the tion on the shell-to-skeleton transition in the largest ocean-going vessels. Mediterranean, showing possible links with The book suffers from the usual problems northwest European construction techniques, when trying to solicit contributions from a is an outstanding contribution. Rieth's paper large number of international authors to on the early sixteenth-century Villefranche produce the proceedings of a conference. wreck provides a fine description and analysis Some of the papers have been well prepared of the major structural features on this vessel. and illustrated while others are little more The late John Sarsfield's description of the than resumés. Also, problems of translation ethnographic survival in Brazil and other parts make comprehending a very few of the papers of the western hemisphere of the ancient difficult. The editors, however, have done an "master frame and ribbands" technique of con• admirable job of assembling and organizing struction is one of the highlights of this the material into a coherent package. The volume. Besides describing the method, he strength of the volume is that it concentrates compares it to other methods such as "Medi• on a single subject and, for the most part, terranean moulding" and whole moulding, and 66 The Northern Mariner

proposes an evolutionary sequence for the Jacques Marc. Exploring the Lord Western. various techniques. Another very interesting Vancouver: Underwater Archaeological contribution is the paper by Riess on the con• Society of British Columbia, 1989. v + 43 pp, struction of the eighteenth-century Ronson figures, photographs, references. $8 (+ ship• ship. Riess provides a good description of the ping; = $3.50 in Canada), paper. construction of this vessel and successfully ties together historical treatise information Jacques Marc. Historic Shipwrecks of South• with the design of this ship. ern Vancouver Island. Vancouver: Underwater Other noteworthy contributions include: Archaeological Society of British Columbia, Barker's paper on dockyard design practices 1990. vi + 57 pp., photographs, figures. $9 (+ around 1600 and the use and possible survival shipping; = $3.50 in Canada), paper. of surmarks on extant ship's timbers as a clue to how a ship may have been constructed; Current research in nautical archaeology has Gillmer's description of the development of shied away from the grand excavations of the true naval architecture and how it arose in the past to concentrate primarily on resource eighteenth century; and Litwin's offering on inventories and non-invasive site documenta• Polish working boats which compares medi• tion. There are several reasons for this. eval and modern craft and how their working Today, complex underwater archaeological environments dictated the form of the hull. excavation and conservation of recovered A few papers are strictly historical in• artifacts is very expensive and often not cluding a study by Filgueiras of Spanish technically feasible. In addition, government medieval shipbuilding, a description by Litwin administrators and archaeologists, who have of the construction of the first Polish galleon, been asked to manage these non-renewable and Moura's presentation on Portuguese cultural resources, simply do not know what caravelôes . Their inclusion among mainly lies out there. Exploring the Lord Western and archaeological papers emphasizes the inad• Historic Shipwrecks of Southern Vancouver equacy of the historical approach to the study Island represent a very good effort by the of detailed shipbuilding methods. Often, Underwater Archaeological Society of British iconographie evidence and treatise information Columbia (UASBC) to begin inventorying the do not correspond to real construction historical resource base lying in the waters off methods seen on surviving archaeological British Columbia. vessels. Further, it is archaeological informa• Shipwrecks have been likened to time tion that is illuminating many of the difficult capsules of history; when excavated properly, to understand passages in the treatises. they can reveal much about our past. In this Because of the sheer wealth of its infor• perspective, these two manuscripts by the mation, it is difficult to do adequate justice to UASBC show readers that the true value of this volume in a short review. For the most these resources is in their historical informa• part, the papers are extremely technical in tion, not the fanciful treasures they are so nature and most suitable for individuals with often rumoured to contain. The UASBC quite at least some knowledge of shipbuilding correctly points out that the archaeological techniques and terminology. Yet they embody information contained in the wrecks is public most of the current thinking on the subject. property, to be shared by all. These reports For anyone intently interested in this particu• should therefore carry a broad appeal to lar aspect of shipbuilding, this volume is anyone interested in history, maritime trade, mandatory reading. ships, shipwrecks, or archaeology. Their pub• lication will be of particular value for the way R. James Ringer they will serve as a reference inventory for Ottawa, Ontario archaeologists and historians who are inter- Book Reviews 67 ested in expanding the resource base of nine• Overall these site inventories add a great teenth-century ships and shipping. deal to maritime studies, whether it be The manuscripts are simply arranged, through wreck site description or historical well organized, and eminently readable, research. The resource base, as is clearly though a good map would help non-Canadian stated, should be protected for the benefit of readers find their way to Adventure Bay and all, from the diving enjoyment of future the Lord Western site. Illustrations are inform• generations, to the historical information ative and skilfully done, while photographs contained within these sites. The UASBC contribute a great deal to the ship and wreck should be commended for these publications site descriptions. and their dedication to education and a The historical research contained in the resource preservation ethic. This is one arch• publications serves to highlight each vessel's aeologist who thanks them for a fine effort. particular career and the specific disasters that befell them. The use of historical references Bradley A. Rodgers and primary sources validates the underwater Greenville, North Carolina research, adding much to their professional quality. It is here that the authors have David Macaulay. Ship. Boston: Houghton attained their goal of an interested archae• Mifflin, 1993. 96 pp., illustrations. $28.95, ological survey that goes far beyond most cloth; ISBN 0-395-52439-3. Distributed in non-professional efforts and will be a valuable Canada by Thomas Allen & Sons, Markham, resource for archaeologists as well as good ON. reading for the public. If the reports have a weakness, it is that Prize-winning children's writer David Macau- the historical research does not place the ships lay has turned his talents to shipwreck archae• in a larger historical context. The Major ology in this fictional account of the dis• Tomkins, for instance, though not physically covery and study of a 1504 caravel site in the located in the survey, is a very early screw Bahamas. Everything is here, from the search steamer, and of considerable importance in a for the wreck, through its excavation, to the world historical context. Another example is work in the conservation lab and the archives. the San Pedro, constructed as one of the There is even a sub-plot of site destruction by world's last of the wrought-iron steamers, treasure hunters, carrying with it an appropri• before steel construction made iron obsolete. ate heritage preservation message. The technical understanding of nautical The real joy of the book is not so much archaeology by the authors is considerable and in its content as in its graphic presentation. a credit to the UASBC. Non-invasive survey, The text overlies assorted illustrations, includ• documentation, and conservation techniques ing site plans, field sketches and even the and the rationale behind them are clearly archaeologist's desk top (complete to coffee stated and demonstrate a dedication to the mug, half-eaten doughnut and what seems to preservation of these underwater sites through be the tail of the office cat). Some of the text education and awareness raising. The authors is incorporated in novel forms, such as faxes should take care, however, that new technical from the project's archive researcher in innovation in underwater work should not Seville, Post-It notes on open textbooks, and dominate the actual goals of information even mail from the Nobel Prize Committee gathering. One simple example of several, is (!). Finally, the story of the wreck is told in that a balance beam and a beaker will suffice the form of a draft of a magazine article, to measure salinity through evaporation, as followed by the illustrated diary of the cara• opposed to procurement of an expensive and vel's owner, discovered in the archives. delicate salinometer. The result is an accurate portrayal of 68 The Northern Mariner modern shipwreck archaeology, at least as the Dana A. Story. Growing Up In A Shipyard: game is played by the Ships of Discovery and Reminiscences of a Shipbuilding Life in Essex, Exploration Program, whose staff obviously Massachusetts. Mystic, CT and Essex, MA: provided the author with his models. The dis• Mystic Seaport Museum in association with comfort and rewards of fieldwork, the logistic The Essex Shipbuilding Museum, 1991. xviii demands of research in isolated areas, the dif• + 139 pp., photographs. US $15, paper; ISBN ficult choices facing an excavation team, the 0-913372-57-9. long slog in the laboratory and the excitement of discovery as details fall into place are all The author of this book is a mainstay of, and revealed, though often not explicitly stated. an historian with, the Essex Shipbuilding The technical details of the caravel closely Museum. Dana Story wants us to regard him follow Sarsfield's conclusions. This makes as an unexceptional individual whose life was them as accurate as current knowledge can shaped by his relationship to his father's support, if not actually reliable. There are no shipyard. In addition, we learn that he lived compromises in the terminology used, either within the context of an extended family of in describing the work of the archaeologists or relatives in the town of Essex. Among the the construction of the caravel, which adds to workers in his father's shipyard there was a the authenticity of the whole. variety of individuals who helped to shape The publisher categorizes Ship as "juven• him. There are no footnotes documenting the ile literature" and in its pace and style it is story of his life. He tells us that "facts, figures evidently designed for teenagers. Lacking and dates" are drawn from his memory recent personal experience in that age bracket, because the records of the family shipbuilding I passed the review copy to a thirteen year-old company were destroyed by fire, in 1950. for comment. He was delighted with it. Moreover, it was the demands of a war• My only serious criticism is that the book time economy (World War II) that made it is very short; less than 5,000 words for the possible for him to gain experience in the main text and as much again for the diary. I operation of shipyards and the actual building read it in half an hour. Perhaps that really is of various kinds of craft. Fulfilling an estab• the attention span of a teenager but it gives no lished family objective, the author attended space for the development of the main charac• the Massachusetts Institute of Technology but ters nor for the reader's emotional involve• did not complete the programme. He did ment in the story. The story is also too pat. become a qualified draughtsman. After work• The problems are solved too easily. Artifact ing in this capacity for Sun Shipbuilding at assemblages are rarely this complete. None of Chester, Pennsylvania from 1940 to 1942, the few wrecks of this vintage actually known Story worked in wooden and steel naval can even be named, let alone linked to surviv• construction at Ipswich, Massachusetts. ing diaries. Perhaps this too is necessary to Consistent with this self-portrayal of an appeal to an audience raised on television. ordinary guy who has led an unspectacular In short, if you want to "turn on" a life, Story notes that while he had financially teenager to matters nautical, archaeological or successful relatives, personally he was not in simply cerebral, you could do far worse than their league. From 1872, his father had been to present them with this book. But don't engaged not only in the construction of expect it to keep them occupied for more than vessels but also in various other enterprises a minute for each dollar that it will cost you. and activities. It was not until after D-Day that the author decided to begin his own Trevor Kenchington business in the family yard formerly run by Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia his father. His first order was for a fishing craft. In Chapter 7, there is an explanation of Book Reviews 69

how his own attempt to run a shipyard came Alan Storm. Storm and Company. Whitby, to grief. So Story's short career as the owner UK: Caedmon of Whitby, 1993 [Caedmon of and manager of a yard came to an end in Whitby, "Headlands," 128 Upgang Lane, 1948. Whitby, North Yorkshire Y021 3JJ]. 192 pp., It is this date that constitutes one of the photographs, illustrations. £10.50, paper; most interesting aspects of this book. While ISBN 0-905355-41-5. shipbuilding at Essex, Massachusetts began in the middle of the seventeenth century, Dana This is a book about the Storm clan of fisher• was not born until 1919. Therefore, his exper• men (in-shore and deep-sea), colliers, coastal ience of growing up in a yard where wooden and ocean-going seamen and master mariners, fishing vessels were constructed occurred after based on Robin Hood's Bay between Whitby the great era of the sailing ship had and Scarborough and closely interrelated with passed. Yet, the rhythm of operations appears other similar clans from those parts whose to have differed little from that of the ship• existence depended largely upon the sea. The yards in Atlantic Canada during the nineteenth approach is primarily genealogical and there• century. At Essex, the yards were located fore other aspects of maritime social and along the banks of a tidal estuary. Most of the economic history emerge only tantalisingly building was done by traditional hand• and are not developed. work. Tried and true ways were also used for Part 1 (seventy pages) is devoted to the the launchings. Some vessels were provided Memoirs of Jacob Storm (1837-1926), a with engines, of course. Nevertheless, the master mariner who graduated from sail to reader gets the distinct impression that the steam and who put together an account of activity in the yards discussed was the con• Storms from 1539 onwards including many struction of sailing vessels. contemporaries, sea-goers to a man. There are The launching of his own business many references to the severe casualties marked one of the social changes that Story suffered, and the profits and losses of invest• notes when examining the collapse of his ment in ships, some of which he commanded, business and the end of the wooden ship• together with a succinct diary of a two-month building era at Essex and elsewhere in the voyage in 1887, carrying coal to Venice, United States. The first order for a vessel thence in ballast to the Black Sea for grain came from the owner of the Producers' Fish and homewards to the Elbe, bunkering at Company. An influential citizen in the local Constantinople, Malta and Gibraltar. With a communities, he was able to direct other fair wind eleven knots could be achieved, customers to Story's company. The author reducing to four in foul weather. indicates that his customers still wanted Having swallowed the anchor Jacob fishing boats but that they were no longer became a marine superintendent at Whitby from the original ethnic stock of Essex and with time to indulge in genealogy. His great- vicinity. The note upon which the book ends grandson, Alan Storm, the author/editor, is therefore one that conveys the passing of devotes 120 pages in Part 2 to Tables (sic) of Essex's uniqueness. It became much like other descent of the Storms up to the present with towns as the "old Anglo-Saxon names began potted biographies of a host of these mariners to die out and disappear...." In this context, it and their in-laws. may be of sociological interest that his last Some analysis of single ship companies foreman was a Doucette replacing a Cogswell. and of the shareholders (who were they ? Locals or tradesfolk and others from else• Gerry Panting where?) would have illustrated the social St. John's, Newfoundland structures of this isolated community. Were 'the Bay' and Whitby pace-setters in the 70 The Northern Mariner revolutionary changes from wood to iron, sail Peter N. Davies (ed.). The Diary of John to steam and the new technologies of marine Holt. Research in Maritime History No. 5; St. engineering in the last century, or did these John's, NF: International Maritime Economic changes only come slowly and if so was it History Association, 1993. xiii + 205 pp., due to lack of capital or conservative atti• photographs, tables. US $15, paper; ISBN 0- tudes? The relationship between seafaring and 9695885-5-0. husbandry as separate or interdependent sea• sonal activities pursued by the same or differ• First published in 1948, this diary is ent sections of the Bay community is also not reissued and benefits from the editing of Peter clear. The shadowy figure of one member of Davies' unrivalled knowledge of shipping on the clan who was engaged in smuggling ("a the West African coast in the nineteenth comfortable farmer...till he challenged the century. John Holt (1841-1915) spent twelve government over imports and lost his hold• years in West Africa, much of them on the ings") indicates one such link with the land. island of Fernando Po. He established a Six monetary tables appear between pages company in his name which became a leader 17 and 48, of which five are incorrectly totted in the trade and himself as a major up, e.g. the final profit of the brig Harrison Liverpudlian entrepreneur. This work covers (including capital outlay) amounted to £668 his sojourn on Fernando Po during June 1862 over eighteen years, not "well over £1,000" as to December 1864 and January 1869 to Jan• stated; we are left to guess whether the errors uary 1872. The work also includes a memo, lie with Jacob, the author/editor or the printer. based on its log, of the voyages from England Cross-referencing, particularly of the photo• and on the West African coast of a sailing graphs, is sketchy or non-existent; the method schooner, the Maria, during February 1869 to of tabulating the generations presents diffi• January 1871. In addition, there is a separate culties and is remote from normal usage, the record for the brief stay in November and reader being denied the help of any sketch December 1867 of the iron barque Peep pedigrees. Only a half-tamed computer could o'Day (built at Newcastle in 1863) recruiting produce such an erratic layout and wasted crews. Krumen from the coast of Liberia were spaces; ship names are randomly indicated in extensively used on ships plying West African four different methods of printing and there waters. And Holt used them. are many other errors which should not have The diary entries are more revealing and survived proof-reading. insightful than the usual personal records left For those who have connections with 'the by self-made businessmen of the Victorian Bay' or Storm antecedents the undoubted era. Distinguishing features of the flora and value of this incredibly numerous clan of fauna of the island are identified. The inter• seafarers will outweigh the failures of presen• personal relationships and group dynamics of tation, some of which confuse the genealogi• the island's polyglot inhabitants are explored. cal data. Despite many irritants the general They included Spanish and British among reader will find this eye-witness account over those of European descent, several African the forty years that Jacob was at sea from groups, people of mixed ancestry and of 1850 onwards the more interesting part, but various socio-economic classes. Holt's own will also do well to persevere into Part 2 to personal preferences when it came to people recapture the shipping business of all kinds and which were rather less Euro-centric than that was engaged in by the mariners whom his contemporaries as well as his eating habits Dr. Storm has mustered. and illnesses are detailed. Quinine in problem• atic dosage did not prevent him from contract• Peter Raban ing malaria in virulent form. It would not be Market Harborough, Leicester until the 1890s that the mosquito's role in Book Reviews 71 transferring the disease would be discovered Basil Greenhill (consulting ed.); Robert Gar• and references in the diary to the insect's diner (gen. ed.). Conway's History of the presence including in ships' bilges precede its Ship: The Advent of Steam. The Merchant recurrence in Holt or others with whom he Steamship before 1900. London: Conway worked. There is, as well, sufficient evidence Maritime Press, 1993. 190 pp., photographs, here to establish why he was successful at line drawings, tables, maps, bibliography, business and others he encountered less so. glossary, index. £28, cloth; ISBN 0-85177- Fair, careful and shrewd in his dealings, 563-2. sensible in his drinking and eating habits and hardworking, even when stricken with illness, The Advent of Steam constitutes the fifth he was unique among his compatriots. volume in Conway's new, twelve-part "His• The Maria cost Holt £1200 (diary entry, tory of the Ship" series, with Robert Gardiner p. 96; the introduction, p. 12, states £620). He serving as general editor. This is a pedigree thought he had paid too much for this oak- that recommends its constituents very strong• hulled vessel built at Plymouth in 1852 of ly, for both the series itself, and the philos• sixty-five registered tons, but he used it very ophy that informs it, are welcome additions to effectively. Its sailing characteristics, cargo, maritime literature. Each volume in the series ports of call, crew and officers are all well consists of thematic essays written by a care• documented in the diary or the memo. Num• fully selected group of specialist-contributors erous other vessels which called at Fernando and edited by a specialist on the volume's Po are mentioned but not much elaborated particular topic. The organization of the upon. For example, the scheduled liners of the themes is not strictly chronological, but British and African Steam Navigation Com• serves, nonetheless, to present the subject in a pany are only named. The editor, using coherent manner. This multi-author, thematic Lloyd's Register, provides additional informa• approach is one of the salient features of the tion on many of these steamers. One is illus• series, imbuing it with both the richness that trated. Naval vessels, including the ubiquitous comes from a variety of perspectives and gunboat, also get editorial treatment. But expertise, as well as an enhanced utility for other ships mentioned go unremarked so that, the researcher. for example, it is not clear whether they are This particular volume is broken down sailers or steamers. Nevertheless, a sense of into ten chapters with contributions from nine the goods and passenger traffic instrumental different authors covering large, general issues in integrating West Africa's economy into that like "Steam before the Screw" and "Steam of Europe's can be derived from the work. Navigation and the United States" as well as And this understanding could be substantially more specific topics such as "The Ship Pro• expanded not only by reference to Davies' peller Company and the Promotion of Screw own publications but also to an uncited work, Propulsion 1836-1952," "Sail-Assist and the J.E. Cowden and J.O.C. Duffy, The Elder Steamship," and "Alfred Holt and the Com• Dempster Fleet History, 1852-1925 (1986). pound Engine." Finally, in proper recognition Essential reading for the study of Euro• of the essentially technological nature of the pean expansion on the west coast of Africa as subject, the book devotes special attention to well as for British entrepreneurship, this work such matters as "Triple Expansion and the is also useful for maritime studies, especially First Shipping Revolution," "Industrial Back• if used in conjunction with other sources. ground to the Development of the Steamship," and "Marine Engineering Development in the Robert Kubicek Nineteenth Century." Overall, the chapters Vancouver, British Columbia complement Basil Greenhill's tripartite con• ception of the subject: paddlewheels, propel- 72 The Northern Mariner

lers, and compound steampower. (pp.11-12) Maurizio Eliseo. Rex: Regis Nomen, Navis Though some readers might prefer a more Omen. Storio di un Transatlantico. The Grey• conventional approach to a subject as pivotal hound of the Seas. Parma, Italy: Ermanno to maritime history as steampower, the virtues Albertelli Editore, 1992.256 pp., photographs of Greenhill's selections and arrangement (colour, b&w), figures, appendices, bibliogra• outweigh the drawbacks. In the history of phy, index. L80,000, cloth; ISBN 88-85909- technology, progress and innovation are 35-3 (North American orders: US $60 by seldom as linear as the didactic efforts of international money order to: Ermanno Alber• historians sometimes suggest. telli Editore, P.O. Box 395, 1-43100 Parma, In this respect, it is regrettable that the Italy). notion of "revolution" found its way into one of the chapters, for too often this concept is In Rex, Maurizio Eliseo has produced one of more a dramatic device than an explanatory the finest looking books devoted solely to a model. While few would deny the importance passenger liner that I have ever seen. His of the triple expansion engine, Denis Grif• sumptuous paean to Italy's greatest liner is fiths' statement that "many factors worked to presented in a large format on the glossiest of bring about the change from sail to steam paper. A fine collection of black and white during the final two decades of the nineteenth photos detail her construction, appointments century, but the introduction of the triple and demise. As well, many of the promotional expansion engine may be considered as the renderings created for her inaugural voyage most influential" (p. 125) is an unnecessary are reproduced in vivid colour. Also included assertion of hierarchy. Such an argument are detailed plans of her accommodations, a serves only to reinforce, explicitly or implicit• photo album of famous passengers, and line ly, the Whig notion of progress. Indeed, the drawings of the Rex and all other holders of Anglo-American bias of this particular topic the Blue Riband. As a testament to Eliseo's ought to inspire a greater than normal degree fascination with Italy's Greyhound there is an of caution in this particular respect. appendix on his construction of a 1:100 scale, While it was clearly not the intention of working model of the Rex that took him 4,500 the editor to present a revisionist collection of hours over three years to complete. essays on the subject, students of the history Rex is a book that you are predisposed to of technology might well wish for more like upon picking it up and leafing through analysis of the causes and nature of innova• the pages. The fact that it is written in two tion. Andrew Lambert's chapter on the Ship languages — Italian and English — should have Propeller Company provides a good example added to its attractiveness. It does not! Vir• of such an approach, examining as it does, tually half the book is given over to an Eng• through a case study, the politics and econ• lish translation of the Italian text; and a omics of invention. Most of the authors chose translation is all that it is! The English trans• instead a more conservative, chronological lation is pedestrian at best and difficult to narrative line. Still, the result is a volume that read at worst. Spelling mistakes I expected, is a useful contribution to the literature; a but not awkward sentence structure, and thorough, well-presented account of both the inappropriate tenses. For a book that is obvi• details and the context of the development of ously aimed at an English-speaking market as steam navigation. For those who can afford it, much as an Italian one, the use of a translator this book, like the series to which it belongs, as adept at English as Italian should have is well worth the investment. been a given. As a result, the translation, such as it is, only hints at what must, in Italian, be Garth Wilson a very enjoyable read. Ottawa, Ontario While Rex is a fine history of the ship, Book Reviews 73 aside from the stories concerning her some• an era which ended with the last voyage of what eccentric captain, Francesco Tarabotto the Ben-my-Chree in 1985, are the subject of and his relationship with his passengers and Steam Packet Memories. crew, there is little of a personal nature con• As its title suggests, this booklet's cerning the people, famous and otherwise, approach to its subject is heavily influenced, who travelled on her. This book could have not surprising for a publication from a firm benefited from the inclusion of recollections whose stated audience is "the enthusiast and anecdotes to bring the Rex back to life. fraternity and the ferry industry" in Britain. Instead, too much attention is given over to However, readers who are not part of this her attainment of the Blue Riband for the specialized group would have appreciated at fastest crossing of the Atlantic, and to the fact least some contextual information about the that it was the only time an Italian vessel had history of the Isle of Man Steam Packet succeeded in capturing this coveted honour. Company both before and after the years from Rex does succeed in clearing up any 1960 to 1985. The text is a narrative of events confusion that the Rex and Conte Di Savoia rather than an analysis of underlying forces; were true "sisters." Sister ships they may have there is no nostalgia about the unpleasant been through the amalgamation of the Naviga- economic factors which evidently caused the zione Générale Italiana with the Lloyd Sabau- demise of steam passenger service in 1985. do and other Italian lines, but "twins" they John Shepherd concludes with a plea for the were not. They were totally different in style, preservation of Manxman at her birthplace in construction and personality, having only their Birkenhead, where she would serve "not only speed and dimensions in common. A similar• as a reminder of a now departed form of ity in name was contemplated with the nam• transport but also as a testimony to the men ing of the Lloyd Sabaudo liner Dux, but it of Cammell Laird who built her." (p.45) was declined by Benito Mussolini, who Steam Packet Memories employs an thought the monarchy would be annoyed attractive two-column page layout to advan• should their ship Rex prove slower than his, tage, and features both colour and black-and- and // Duce's image would have suffered white illustrations of the exteriors and should the reverse have held true. interiors of the company's ships. The photo• Eliseo's book will likely be considered graph of Manxman leaving Douglas in a the definitive history of one of the greatest Force 11 gale (p. 16) is particularly evocative trans-Atlantic liners of all time. I will concede of the extreme conditions in which she and him this distinction, but only in Italian. her sister ships sometimes operated.

John Davies Peter Robertson Vancouver, British Columbia Ottawa, Ontario

John Shepherd. Steam Packet Memories. David Burrell. Furness Withy: The Centenary Staplehurst, Kent: Ferry Publications, 1993. History of Furness, Withy and Company, Ltd 48 pp., photographs, statistics. £3.45, paper; 1891-1991. Kendal, UK: The World Ship ISBN 0-9513506-8-4. Society, 1992 [28 Natland Road, Kendal LA9 7LT, England]. 231 pp., illustrations, index. With illustrious names like Ben-my-Chree, £30 UK, £32 in Canada; cloth; ISBN 0- King Orry, and Mona 's Queen, the passenger 905617-70-3. steamers of the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company linked the island's port of Douglas David Burrell has written a fine popular his• with Liverpool and lesser ports on the Irish tory of Fumess Withy. This oversize volume Sea. The final years of service for these ships. includes the host of ship portraits and the fleet 74 The Northern Mariner

list readers have come to expect from World Marmaduke Furness (Lord Furness' son) in Ship Society publications. But perhaps rather 1919. Shortly thereafter an attempt was made unexpectedly the author has presented a useful to repeat a Canada Steamship Lines-type introduction to the business strategy of the amalgamation on the Danube with the acquisi• founder of the firm, Christopher Furness. tion of Austrian, Hungarian and German lines The heart of Burrell's volume lies in his by the Furness Withy-led Danube Navigation description of Furness Withy's complex Company. Unlike CSL, the Danube Naviga• ownership and investment patterns. Furness tion Company did not survive as a shipping was an early advocate of speculative ship• firm. More successfully, in 1919 Furness building. Beginning in the early 1880s he Withy purchased the assets of the Quebec built standardized tramps at Edward Withy's Steamship Company. Along with other of the shipyard. Furness would operate them until a company's holdings the old Canadian com• market could be found for the tramps. These pany was reconstituted as the Bermuda and vessels were used in a multitude of enterprises West Indies Steamship Company. The new which the author lays out in painstaking subsidiary profited immensely from prohib• detail. Indeed the list of shipping companies ition in the United States which almost in which Furness Withy had either a share or guaranteed the success of its cruise liners on running arrangements was staggering. the New York-Bermuda run. However, Included were such well-known fleets as Furness Withy's crowning achievement during Leyland, Manchester Liners, Houlder the inner war period was the acquisition of Brothers, Canada Steamship Lines and Shaw, the Shaw, Savill and Albion Line in 1935 Savill and Albion. The activities and structure from the remnants of Lord Kylsant's Royal of some firms could have been outlined more Mail Steam Packet Group. thoroughly than others, British Maritime Trust The chapters on World War II and subse• being a case in point. Although Furness did quent post-war developments are rather disap• not establish the company, his influence pointing. At times they are a mere catalogue deserves to be examined in greater detail. of events with little analysis and few details. The transformation of Furness Withy Unfortunately such summaries of recent from primarily a tramp owner to a liner events are almost inevitable in official his• operator in the decade before World War I is tories. told well. The author sees this new direction There is much in this volume for the ship as a result of the formation by J.P. Morgan of lover. The fleet list alone enumerates more the International Merchant Marine in 1902. than 1400 vessels. Not included in this list, However Furness' unsuccessful attempts to however, are the ships owned by Canada gain control of the Royal Mail Line are not Steamship Lines from 1913 to 1922 when described at length. This is a pity because CSL was controlled by Furness Withy and Furness was later to use the same strategy Vickers. Too many of the lovely black and effectively to take over the Richelieu and white ship portraits are of a miniature size Ontario Navigation Company. suitable for Marine News but not for an A4- The company's story during World War size volume. In contrast, some of the half- I was one of almost unmitigated disaster. In page colour photographs are out of focus. all Furness Withy lost ninety-seven ships to This reviewer would also have appreciated a enemy action and marine risks between bibliography, if only to illuminate the author's August 1914 and November 1918. Only the research efforts. Taken as a whole, however, purchase of the Prince Line in 1916 relieved this volume is a success. this dismal picture. Before rebuilding could begin, management lead by deputy chairman M. Stephen Salmon Frederick Lewis, purchased the company from Orleans, Ontario Book Reviews 75

Gunnar Nerheim and Bjørn S. Utne. Smedvig: the interwar depression precisely because his A Story of Canning, Shipping and Contract low-cost investments were countercyclical in Drilling from Western Norway. Stavanger: their timing. Smedvig also emerged profitably Peder Smedvig A/S, 1992 [order from: Peder from World War II, despite Norway's occupa• Smedvig A/S, Lxkkeveien 103, N-4007 Stav• tion by the Germans and the loss of much of anger, Norway]. 253 pp., photographs, illus• the firm's shipping. He possessed all the trations, maps, figures, notes. NOK 200, legendary entrepreneurial characteristics of cloth; ISBN 82-992247-1-3. toughness, independence, leadership and an aptitude for hard work — although these very This is the story of the growth and develop• qualities may have encouraged him to remain ment of a family firm. Founded in Stavanger too long at the helm. on Norway's western coast just before World Although the risks of shipowning made War I, the company originated with small Peder's caution understandable Torolf appears sailing vessels but soon ventured into fish to have been more creative, investing in of all canning. By the 1980s Peder Smedvig A/S things a leisure complex in the British Virgin was an international enterprise with core busi• Islands. But it was also Torolf s boldly imagi• nesses in chartering supertankers, contract native participation in oil and contract drilling drilling and supply services for the oil indus• that laid the foundations of the modern verti• try. The authors explain how this commercial cally integrated enterprise. By the 1980s, too, transformation and product diversification many of Peder Smedvig's cherished business came about. principles had lapsed. The enormous financing Although it covers three generations of needs of capital intensive and technologically managing-owners, the focus of the book is on complex businesses like oil exploration and the founder, Peder Smedvig, and to a lesser supertankers no longer permitted the family's extent his two sons, Torolf and Johan, who companies to control all the equity or avoid took over the firm's assets on Peder's death in liquidity crises. Moreover, the well-known 1959. Johan managed the canning businesses, cycles of boom and bust in shipping, very which paid modest but reliable returns, while often prompted by unpredictable world events, Torolf, whom the book's narrative then large• continued to make tanker management an art ly follows, ran the more volatile shipping as much as a science. side. The authors speculate upon the different Each chapter is credited to one of the entrepreneurial styles adopted by Peder and authors but the finished work is both cohesive Torolf. Both foresight and good fortune seem and informative. The authors acknowledge the to have characterised Peder' s decision-making. help of the founder's grandson, Peter Smed• He was certainly lucky in the impact of ran• vig, who became chairman after his father's dom events like World War I, which raised death in 1977, but the book is not an uncriti• shipping freights and expanded the demand cal appraisal of the family's business. It for canned food, but it takes a skilful entre• cleverly combines analysis with an appeal to preneur to exploit these openings in a chang• a general readership. Indeed, the story is set ing business environment. Peder, it seems, within a wide context for there is much here also preferred to follow established business upon Norway's modem economic history and lines rather than to innovate yet his crucial upon recent developments in world shipping decisions about when to enter or abandon a and oil drilling. Whatever the book may have business often owed little to conventional lost in translation - it was originally pub• wisdom. Nor was he afraid to diversify. He lished in Norwegian — is more than compen• pulled out of shipping just before the boom sated by its lavish production. It is packed broke after the war in favour of canning and with illustrations, tables and charts, many of fish oil and he preserved his fortune during them in colour, but this is no coffee table 76 The Northern Mariner

volume. The book is based both on business (a dry hole) was drilled off Charlottetown, sources and upon secondary works — although Prince Edward Island during World War II by many are in Norwegian and, therefore, unfam• the Socony Vacuum Co. — later Mobil Oil. iliar to or inaccessible for an English reader• The main part of the book is designed to ship. One small complaint is that although the take the reader chronologically from a rig book is properly annotated it lacks an index. while in port, getting various checkouts, followed by the tow-out to the wellsite, Robert G. Greenhill anchoring, ballasting and beginning to drill or Tonbridge, United Kingdom spudding in. One continues through a well's history, testing of hydrocarbons, plugging and Terry Robinson. The Offshore: An Introduc• abandoning the well then the anchor recovery tion to the Technology, Terminology and to move to a new location. "Safety is never Operations of Offshore Oil Exploration. St. far from the surface," according to the author, John's, Newfoundland: Jesperson Press, 1992. and those in the industry who were close to xiv + 194 pp., photographs, figures, appen• the Ocean Ranger tragedy, Rowan Gorilla dices, index, glossary. $24.95, paper; ISBN 0- One's loss and various helicopter mishaps will 920502-98-9. surely agree. Robinson has two chapters on safety; one concerns helicopter and lifeboat The dust jacket suggests that this book is systems for getting on and off the drill rig suitable "for any person wishing to have a and the other concerns safety on board a rig. basic understanding of this [oil exploration] He then reviews weather concerns and appro• field," and the author in his preface hopes that priate crew response with reference to the loss the book will "serve as an approachable and of the Ocean Ranger in February, 1982 and informative introduction for members of the concerns over Hurricane Emily on an general public." Robinson, as an oil rig cap• unnamed Grand Banks rig in September, 1987 tain, does not do badly in this hope. Yet, like (it was the Bowdrill 3). Next he discusses ice Captain Denis F. Drown in the foreword, I and icebergs, ending with a too-brief tantaliz• expect the book will be of more interest and ing photo essay on the late autumn 1988 loss value to those with some prior marine experi• of the Rowan Gorilla One jackup while under ence or knowledge and to those changing tow (and the similar 1980 loss of the Dan from the merchant marine onto an oil rig or Prince). This example is severely short of related rig supply vessel. The book will cer• explanatory text to amplify these two inci• tainly be of value to those studying the off• dents where sensible human action prevented shore oil industry, about to work in associ• the loss of life. ation with the marine exploration industry, or The book concludes with a brief, almost even those who have already been on offshore weak, three-page "concluding note" on life drilling rigs and around the offshore industry offshore, which touches on some of the diffi• for some time. culties related to the month-on, month-off Within a single page, Robinson rushes the shift work involved. None of these are reader through a review of the beginnings of explored in detail and no solutions are the oil drilling industry and onto a drillship. offered. The eight appendices deal with spe• In so doing he credits America with the first cialized rig equipment, crew job descriptions, successful oil well in 1859 in Pennsylvania, rig certification, check lists for pre-sailing, ignoring the possibility that Canada has a helicopters and lifeboats, and so on. legitimate claim to this title in the Petrolia The book is well-illustrated with some area of Ontario. Certainly Canada can claim fifty-nine photos and twenty-one illustrations. the first offshore oil well drilled from an More detailed captions would have made artificial island; the Hillsborough No. 1 well these more useful, while a list of photo credits Book Reviews 11

and sources would have made the book a defining business ethics, through an emphasis more valuable document. The four full-page on the necessity for contextualization, to an colour photos appear to be an afterthought, examination of how ethics played into busi• for they are duplicates of black and white ness policy and practice in nineteenth-century shots that were left in the text. The index and British shipowning. His thesis seems eminent• glossary is a welcome feature. ly reasonable: it is that government regulation Robinson's book comes at a time when and the increasing sophistication of business there has been virtually no exploration work practice in the second half of the nineteenth off Eastern Canada for three years. Perhaps century increased the moral and ethical com• Robinson is also in a period of inactivity and plexion of doing business in shipping. The will turn his hand to a similar handbook on thesis is sustained through a review of differ• production platforms to familiarize Canadians ent types of trade (legal and illegal); of the with this new phase of the offshore industry. impact of government intervention (notably as Oil production began in mid-1993 off western it affected the terms and conditions of em• Sable Island and the huge Hibemia GBS ployment of the industry's workers); and of (gravity-based structure) is due to be in pro• the changing structure of business in conse• duction in 1996. quence of the rise of steam and of liner operations. His coverage is as comprehensive Alan Ruffman as is possible in the space available, and it is Fergusons Cove, Nova Scotia doubly impressive for incorporating a nuanced discussion of sources. As Williams observes, Adrian Jarvis (intro.). Nineteenth Century shady deals are not well documented, so the Business Ethics: Papers presented at a historian interested in business ethics works in Research Day School organized jointly by half-light. National Museums & Galleries on Merseyside This is a problem which confronts Eric and The University of Liverpool, Merseyside Groves. His piece, "Merchants of Death? Maritime Museum, 31st October, 1992. Liver• Ethics in the Late Nineteenth-Century British pool: Merseyside Maritime Museum, 1992. Arms Trade," tackles thorny and often secret• £2, spiral-bound, no ISBN. ive subject matter. Groves is pragmatic: he uses a relativist concept of business ethics to This publication brings to a wider audience investigate how business deals were done in five papers originally presented at a day the late nineteenth and early twentieth century school held at Merseyside Maritime Museum. and how political lobbies were organized by They are both tentative and preliminary and arms traders, especially warship builders. Adrian Jarvis sets the right note in his intro• Groves, like Williams, insists that an absolute duction by inviting communication from standard of ethics is inappropriate to the readers interested in carrying the investigation practice of historical investigation. Context is of nineteenth-century business ethics further. vital, and it is in the context of nineteenth- In short, this is an economically produced century capitalism that business ethics should publication with few pretensions. It is pleas• be understood. antly surprising therefore to find that three of Adrian Jarvis pays lip service to this idea. the five essays are well researched, original His approach to the nineteenth-century Liver• and thought-provoking. They are well worth pool docks engineers is, however, unsubtle. In the attention of readers of this journal. a manner reminiscent of the British tabloid The best by far is David Williams' essay press Jarvis slates these men for inappropriate entitled "Business Ethics and Victorian Ship• and unethical conduct. He passes judgement owners: contexts for research." Williams from a position which is foreshadowed in his moves systematically from an attempt at introductory comment: "engineers and their 78 The Northern Mariner employers frequently acted in a manner which David VanderZwaag (ed.). Canadian Oceanic would today be regarded as highly unethical, Law and Policy. Toronto and Vancouver: and which in some cases would result in Butterworths, 1991. xxxiv + 546 pp., tables, major scandal and likely imprisonment." (p.2) maps, figures, index. $120, cloth; ISBN 0- Whiggish and naively optimistic about the 409-80664-1. present, Jarvis clearly has some learning to do before he passes judgment on the past. For over two decades Dalhousie University Victoria Haworth finds in George Steph• has given priority to ocean law and policy enson "Enginewright and Railway Promoter" studies. Much of this effort has come from a man not beyond reproach. His interlocking the Law School, reinforced by significant directorships of companies gave him oppor• scholarship by associates of the Centre of tunity to promote personal interests at the Foreign Policy Studies, the School for expense, she hints, of the development of the Resource and Environmental Studies, the rail system in Britain. The rough and ready Marine Affairs Programme, and other ocean- self-trained businessman is contrasted with his related units of the University. Perhaps the son, Robert, who was very much more the chief catalyst for collective research initiatives professional. What Haworth misses here is the in this field over the years has been Dalhousie opportunity to elucidate how the legal, techni• Ocean Studies Programme (DOSP), whose cal and commercial context of engineering as members have been extremely active in sev• a business changed between the two gener• eral regions of the world, such as Southeast ations. She might take note of Williams' Asia and the Caribbean. In view of their apposite comment that it is in the broader or continuing overseas commitments, it is good comparative setting we move beyond the to see a major Dalhousie-directed contribution careers of individual businessmen to a larger to the study of ocean law and policy issues in understanding of the problematic issues of Canada, organized under the auspices of business ethics. DOSP's successor, the Oceans Institute of A fifth essay looks somewhat quirky Canada (OIC). It is fitting that the work has beside the others, but I would still put Simon been edited by Professor VanderZwaag, Dentith's "The Fraud in Literature" among the whose own work (with Cindy Lamson) on papers which make this a worthwhile collec• Arctic Ocean law and policy has been consist• tion. He approaches fraud as a literary critic ently of the highest scholarly quality. and his comments on how it was treated in Since the end of the celebrated Third UN nineteenth-century fiction are informed by Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS post-structuralist insights. Business historians III) in 1982, the law-of-the-sea (i.e. "ocean (who tend to be of a neo-positivist stripe) are law and policy") field has been relatively unlikely to be persuaded either of the value of quiescent. Normal career rotation has ensured novels or of the virtues of Dentith's analysis that the Canadian government's leading of these sources. I found the essay refreshing, experts have moved on to fresh, if not however, since it engages with cultural values greener, pastures. In certain contexts, not least and expectations which surely go the heart of the environmental, the UNCLOS "paradigm" ethical questions. All considered, then, has, in some meaningful ways, yielded to new between the slight bindings of this publication frames of reference, such as the Rio ethos of there is some interesting work. One looks the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and forward to seeing how it might develop in the Development (UNCED). The end of the Cold hands of the more competent authors. War has brought realism to the hope for bold cooperative management in the Arctic Ocean. Valerie Burton Tragically, the fishing community of New• St. John's, Newfoundland foundland in particular has suffered from a Book Reviews 79 calamitous collapse of cod stocks in adjacent Lavers and Iain Stewart); the impact of dereg• and more distant waters, and put severe pres• ulation on our ports policy (John Gratwick sure on Canada's commitment to the 200-mile and Wade Elliott); the lack of an overall limit on national fishery jurisdiction. Yet the framework for protecting the quality of our prospect of some degree of cooperative inter• marine environment (Ray Côté); the difficulty national fishery management in the Gulf of of securing international recognition of special Maine and conceivably in the St. Pierre and aboriginal rights to marine resources (Mary Miquelon trans-boundary area seems to be im• Ellen Turpel); and the impact of the Cana• proving. After years of delay, it now appears dian-US Free Trade Agreement (and now that a Canadian government-industry partner• NAFTA) on the Canadian fishing industry ship will proceed to development of the (Ted McDorman). These are only a few of the Hibemia oil field offshore. New issues have chapters challenging the makers and shakers surfaced at the national level, such as that of of Canadian ocean policy and legislation. the special entitlement of Canada's aboriginal Few countries can produce collections of peoples to the resources of the sea. And now, this quality over such a wide range of ocean rather suddenly, Canada must collect its wits law and policy concerns. This book should be and decide how to play its hand on certain on the shelves of all Canadian ocean-related law-of-the-sea matters as a signatory, but not officials, scholars and practitioners, and of yet a party, to the 1982 UN Convention, non-Canadian counterparts seeking access to which will (finally) come into force for sixty the best Canadian expertise. or more ratifying states in November of this year. For these, and no doubt other, reasons, Douglas M. Johnston this compendium is timely. Victoria, British Columbia This book of over five hundred pages, written by twenty-four contributors, consists Jeanette Greenfield. China's Practice in the of eighteen chapters and eight parts: living Law of the Sea. Oxford: Clarendon Press of resources (by far the largest), non-renewable Oxford University Press, 1992. xxiii + 321 resources, shipping, the marine environment, pp., maps, select bibliography, appendices, aboriginal peoples, free trade and ocean tables, glossary, index. $112.50, cloth; ISBN resources, ocean boundaries and maritime 0-19-825618-3. strategy. Although chiefly oriented to Atlantic Canada, at least half of Canada's leading The history and consciousness of China is that specialists in Canadian ocean law and policy of a great land empire. The People's Republic are included in this impressive collection, and of China (PRC) is the heir of that great terra one welcomes in particular the introduction of firma empire. Despite a preoccupation with several newcomers to the field. Each reader of hinterland issues, a phenomenon well known this wide-ranging work will focus on matters in Canada, the PRC is centrally involved in of personal interest, but for my part the the ocean politics of Asia as its extensive book's value lies above all in the new analysis coastline borders both the East China Sea in provided in areas where existing Canadian law Northeast Asia and the South China Sea in and policy is most clearly deficient, or at least Southeast Asia. China's doors to the world are subject to controversy. My own list would through its salt water ports. include: the issue of straddling stocks manage• Dr. Greenfield's book is one of a small ment on the Grand Banks (chapter by David number of texts which deals with China's VanderZwaag); the deficiencies in Canadian ocean frontier and specifically with the state• legislation for the protection of marine mam• ments and actions of the PRC on marine mals (Susan Waters); the intractability of matters. For this reason alone, this book is an Canadian fishery enforcement problems (John important contribution to the law of the sea 80 The Northern Mariner literature regarding East Asia. Multilateral Process and Continuing Friction" However, the book is not designed for the International Journal of Marine and Coastal casual reader or even one trying to acquire a Law VIII, No. 2[1993], 263-285.) Needless to sense of the future directions of PRC ocean say, a key and enigmatic player in these law and policy. The title of the book is most informal discussions has been the PRC. apt. What has been presented is an essay on While recognizing that for the PRC island the practices (statements, laws and actions) of sovereignty issues have "been the subject of the PRC regarding various ocean issues. The her most direct and immediate attention," approach is a tabulation of practices regard• (p. 17) Greenfield sheds little new light on the ing: bays, straits, the territorial sea, continen• Spratlies issues. Mention is made of the tal shelf, fishing, economic zone, and the deep innovative idea to declare the Spratlies a ocean floor — in short, a description of the demilitarized area, but no attempt is made to activities of the PRC respecting the principal evaluate the potential PRC response. No ocean zones and regimes. The contents and mention is made of the 1988 naval engage• format of the book will be invaluable for ment with Vietnam — a curious omission. It researchers seeking to identify the position of reflects the narrow legal, non-evaluative focus the PRC on a given marine matter. This of the book. Regarding the legal niceties of approach results, however, in a less-than- the Spratlies, Greenfield takes the view that satisfying read since the author does little to China has "quite strong historical arguments" provide a cohesiveness to the accumulation of favouring its ownership claim, (p. 155) disjointed sections. Much of the material presented by the The most sensitive ocean-related problem author as the practice of the PRC on law of in Asia is the multi-state conflict over the the sea comes from the active role of the PRC Spratly Islands, a collection of microscopic at the U.N. Conference on the Law of the islands, islets, reefs and low-tide elevations in Sea. The Conference completed its work in the middle of the South China Sea. The PRC, 1982 with the Law of the Sea Convention. Taiwan and Vietnam have claimed ownership The PRC, along with virtually all other states of the entire Spratly Island chain. Malaysia, has signed the LOS Convention; notable non- the Philippines and Brunei claim one or more signatories are Germany, the United Kingdom of the isles. The sovereignty dispute is made and the United States. In November 1994, the complicated and militarily-dangerous by five Law of the Sea Treaty will come into legal of the six participants having troops stationed force for the over sixty ratifying states. The on a number of the isles. In 1988 the PRC PRC is not one of the states which has rat• and Vietnam engaged in a brief naval skir• ified the Law of the Sea Treaty. Greenfield mish in the Spratlies area which resulted in does not venture an opinion whether the PRC loss of life. will or should become a party to the new Canada has a curious involvement in the Ocean Treaty. In a succinct introductory Spratlies dispute. The Canadian International chapter that deals with the Chinese concept of Development Agency (CIDA) is supporting a law and the PRC's view of international law, joint academic-government initiative which is Greenfield notes that the PRC is a strong attempting to bring the disputants together to adherent to consent as the principal basis of manage the dispute so as to avoid direct international legal obligation. As regards the conflict. The project run by the University of Law of the Sea Convention, this would mean British Columbia and a division of the that the PRC would not feel obliged to com• Indonesian Foreign Ministry has had a series ply with the obligations in the Treaty unless of meetings commencing in 1989. (See, for the PRC ratifies the Treaty. instance, T.L. McDorman, "The South China While this review has focused on what is Sea Islands Dispute in the 1990's: A New missing from China's Practice In The Law of Book Reviews 81

the Sea, this reflects the initial hope that a is portrayed in "Grizzlies and Sasquatches" fulsome exploration of the law of the sea when a Bella Coola Indian guide is knocked policy of the PRC was forthcoming. The book over by a grizzly bear. "I lay there, never itself made no such promise. The treatise, move. She step on my one shoulder little bit however, is of unquestioned value, although with one foot, and she step on the other primarily for researchers seeking specific shoulder with the other foot." His fellow instances of PRC state practice on selected hunter's first shot hit the bear "right high in marine matters. the neck...blood drip all over my face and my chest. I can turn my head a little bit to Ted L. McDorman watch." (p.3) Victoria, British Columbia Other stories span periods from one day, to 5,000 years. "Visitors" is an account of a Howard White. Raincoast Chronicles Fifteen. trip by row boat of a blind missionary and his Stories and History of the B.C. Coast. Har• deaf assistant to an isolated family while bour Publishing, Madeira Park, British Col• "Saturna" describes the inhabitants of Saturna umbia, 1993. 80 pp. photographs, drawings. Island from the Coastal Salish people to $10.95 paper; ISBN 1-55017-091-0 present-day resident, Dave Jack who relates "crusty and mischievous" tales. Howard White created the Raincoast Chron• At Shawnigan Lake in the 1920s, colo• icles series in 1972 and new issues arrive on nels retired from service in India strived to the news stands at the rate of about one a recreate the days of the British Raj. They year. Does anyone remember Trudeau's LIP wore tropical pith helmets to tennis parties (local initiative project) grants from the 1960s and on regatta days, the attire was white whereby entrepreneurs could develop unique flannel trousers while they danced to a string projects? Howard White edited the Peninsula orchestra. In contrast is the protagonist in Voice, a local newspaper on the Sechelt "One-armed Willy" — a "wild nineteen-year- Peninsula. A LIP grant allowed him to hire old kid with a hook for a hand" who worked staff and change it to magazine format. He in a logging camp on the northern tip of created the name "Raincoast" because the Vancouver Island and loved practical jokes. "Sunshine Coast" (northwest of Vancouver) is The tales also span the spectrum of actually a temperate rain forest. "Visitors were telephone customs. On the Sunshine Coast mystified by six weeks of solid monsoons and "sometimes there were so many listeners that we wanted to serve notice that we were going the transmission level fell and the callers had for the authentic image," says Howard White. to shout to be heard." (p.35) For the British The fifteenth Raincoast Chronicles excels colonels in Shawnigan Lake, however, "hon• at contrast. It contains a range of characters our forbade ever lifting the receiver to listen." and experiences such as only true life can (p.55) provide. The collection of ten short stories is Raincoast Chronicles is eminently enter• illustrated with fifty-two photographs and nine taining. However, only one story has a list of drawings. All photographs are black and references. Many are first-person or "as told white, captioned where necessary and are in to" reminiscences where references are not varying states of clarity depending on their relevant. However, they would have been an vintage. There is also a charming water colour asset to the story of providing telephone of fishing boats by June Malaka on the cover. service up the coast from 1876 to 1971. It is Stories range from documentary to puzzling that this opportunity is lost; an drama. "Voice from the Inlet" documents the appendix with references would not have installation of telephone lines under inlets and interfered with the entertainment. Most of the through dense coastal rain forests. High drama drawings are caricature in style and do not do 82 The Northern Mariner

justice to the book. to the coast. Alan saw that the industry was The variety of stories assembled in the changing. Many of the older boats were gone Chronicles ensures that everyone will find or replaced with new steel or aluminum hulls. some that they enjoy. But this book will be of The value of fish had changed dramatically as greatest interest to those (usually boaters) who well: in 1960 herring sold for $8.80 a ton; have explored the islands and inlets of the BC two decades later, roe-herring was selling for coast. The fifteenth Raincoast Chronicles is up to $2500 a ton! And so in 1986 Alan certainly a delightful way to learn some began to research the story of the British history of the BC coast and a great deal about Columbia fishing industry as it was, and as it the foibles of human nature! was becoming. He contacted men like Charlie Clarke, the head skipper of Nelson Brothers Suzanne Spohn Company, who had just retired. Clarke opened Lions Bay, British Columbia the doors by sending Alan to other well- known old-time fishermen (or "fishers," as Alan Haig-Brown. Fishing for a Living. Haig-Brown consistently prefers after the Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 1993. women he interviewed made clear that they 200 pp., photographs, maps, figures. $34.95, did not like being called "fishermen") for their cloth; ISBN 1-55017-093-7. views and valued stories. The book has about thirty short chapters. This is an easy-to-read, profusely illustrated Some describe fishing operations. Thus, the book on presenting a well-balanced cross- opening chapter describes a "set," with illus• section of the British Columbia fishing indus• trations showing a purse seine and how it try, including first-hand accounts from the operates. Another describes, with photos and men and women who crewed the boats or text, record catches of herring up to 1500 tons built them. The author was raised in Campbell in one net! It required fifty-four hours of River on Vancouver Island, where he had steady work before the load was safely aboard many opportunities to visit the fleet of thirteen seine boats. There are chapters on the trailers, seiners and fish-packers that made the early history of salmon fishing on the Fraser small town their home port. His father, a and the little two-man sail boats before the recognized authority on angling, gave Alan an mm of the century that were towed out from early schooling on the great outdoors. He the canneries by little steam tugs. These tugs learned to swim in the fast-flowing Campbell also brought in the fish scows and the boats. River, watching the salmon return each year Other chapters deal with the various shipyards to their spawning grounds. In 1960, at age that built the fishing boats. The Japanese eighteen, he married a local girl and was started building their own boats out near faced with the decision of making a living. Steveston in 1905 or earlier to supplement There was then little choice; it was either their income during the off-season. The fine logging or fishing. And so he went to work quality of their vessels soon attracted the for his father-in-law, Herb Assu, a commer• business of others. cial fisherman with a seventy-seven foot seine Many of the fishers came from Norway boat, the San Jose. as well as Adriatic source countries like Alan had a good instructor and soon Croatia. The rich ethnic mixture of Euro• learned the art of seining for salmon and peans, Japanese, and native Indians led to herring. His earnings helped pay for a univer• considerable racism within the fishing indus• sity education, which led to a career for a try. The cannery operators were partly to year as a teacher in the interior of British blame for overt discriminatory practices. In Columbia. But the lure and adventure of the early history of the industry, local Indians fishing was deep in his blood, so he returned were not allowed to own their own boats and Book Reviews 83 could not get a license. They used drag-seines Homer Stevens and Rolf Knight. A Life in which they pulled in by hand in the river Fishing. Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publish• estuaries. The canneries also played games to ing, 1992. 255 pp., photographs. $29.95, hold their best men from offering their ser• cloth; ISBN 1-55017-070-8. vices to competing canneries. Thus, some companies offered their men loans to build This book succeeds in doing two useful but better boats. This more or less tied the men difficult things. It gives a clear picture of a permanently to the company as they tried to complex West Coast industry and how 7000 pay off the loans. Older boats were given out workers and fishermen welded themselves into to weaker fishers, while the worst boats were a strong, militant union. It also shows how an left for the Indians. It was a long time before incorruptible but very knowledgeable man and these practices were abolished. his comrades made such an unlikely develop• Haig-Brown also includes stories about ment possible. the Japanese herring salteries that once existed The setting highlights some of the com• around the Gulf Islands. The pilchard fishery, plexities: a long, rugged coastline, often with and how it faded away, is mentioned. So too severe storms and currents; a huge variety of is the story of the early halibut schooners that marine life, from giant halibut to tiny shrimp; came to the North Pacific in 1888, and intro• ever-changing vessels and gear to capture and duced the method of fishing with baited hooks transport those creatures; a mish-mash of on long-lines 250 fathoms in length. Old fishing seasons, defined both by natural law halibut steamers like the Celestial Empire and and man-made laws; the many ways of mar• Flamingo are remembered. keting the catch; and, of key importance, the Some attention is given to the problem of ceaseless struggle to win a better standard of union organization, as well as to the so-called life from conservative employers and reaction• "Gumboot Navy," a unit of fishing boats that ary governments. It took years, for example, patrolled the British Columbia coast during to obtain even such an elementary right as World War II. A few shipwrecks are dis• workers' compensation. Moreover, the indus• cussed, such as the Kaare II, Nanceda, Key try itself, subject to federal and provincial West II, the Northview, and others. jurisdictions, is not wholly in Canadian hands. To sum up, this book will be of interest Raised in a family where fishing was the to all British Columbians, and not just the way of life, in a polyglot community located fishers themselves. It revived many pleasant near the mouth of the Fraser River and influ• memories in this reviewer, who as a youth, enced by the CCF (later the NDP) party, the often went to the old Campbell Avenue fish thirteen-year old Homer Stevens took his dock in Vancouver to watch the catch being leaky boat out to begin his career among men unloaded. When the halibut (some of which described by an uncle as "a bunch of Reds... were quite huge) were cleaned of their heads, but pretty good people." That was in 1936. eager bystanders would scramble to cut the Within ten years, Stevens had won the respect delicious meat out from the cheeks, the most of his co-workers and had become well-versed tasty morsels. I also recall going aboard the in the ways that the fishing industry func• little Japanese shrimp boats in order to pick tioned. He was named as an organizer. He did up the leftover shrimp as bait with which to much to help to bond such disparate groups as fish for cod around the docks. That era, long gill-netters, seiners, tendermen and cannery gone, is resurrected in this handsome book. workers (mostly women) into a militant union determined to win better conditions. Some of A.C. (Fred) Rogers these people had been driven unnaturally apart Qualicum Beach, British Columbia by court decisions that had the effect of defining some fishermen as "co-adventurers" 84 The Northern Mariner

(i.e., small, independent businessmen) while Alphonso had been consulted. Since he was others were declared "real" workers. Such not, the necessity arises for books like this rulings did not survive very long, clever ploys one that seek to answer certain very large though they were. questions that perennially plague fisheries A potentially more serious attack came managers who seek to comprehend the popu• with the anti-communist mania that swept into lation dynamics of commercially important Canada from the United States in the early fish species and to make correct predictions 1950s. Stevens had never concealed his politi• touching stock size, allowable catches and the cal views, and became a prime target for the like. right wing, whose aim was to drive a wedge To an appreciable degree this is a book between the far left and the rest of the fisher• for specialists; or, at any rate, for readers who men. Cool heads, steady hands and Stevens' will not be unduly alarmed by casual refer• sensible policies won the day. These were ence to such matters as multivariate analysis, needed once again in 1967-68, when the community matrices, press perturbations, union lost a major strike. When the union Monte Carlo methods, agglomerative algor• rejected an injunction to call off the strike, a ithms of cluster analysis, and the like. That is court order imposed a fine on the union of to say, the true value of this book as a signifi• $107,000 and a year in jail for Stevens and cant contribution to knowledge will be better union president Steve Stavenes for "contempt appreciated by one having some knowledge of of court." Stevens and Stavenes served their statistical mathematics than by one who has sentences and the union survived. Finally, by difficulty with the formula for solving a the end of the 1980s, it was time for Stevens' simple quadratic. retirement, though with no regrets and the Nevertheless, even to the non-mathemat• strong conviction on Stevens' part that, given ical amateur who may have a modest interest the chance, he would do it all again. in natural history, there is much here to capture the attention. There is, for example, John Stanton the intriguing concept of "community studies" Calabogie, Ontario as applied to certain zoogeographic divisions of the Grand Bank each characterized by Manuel do Carmo Gomes. Predictions under homogeneous groupings of species; and the Uncertainty: Fish Assemblages and Food equally intriguing question of whether such Webs on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. groupings indicate functional interdependence St. John's: Institute of Social and Economic or merely common affinity for particular Research, 1993. xiii + 202 pp., tables, maps, depths or particular conditions of océano• figures, appendices, bibliography. $24.95, graphie circulation. There is the absolutely paper; ISBN 0-919666-81-7. fascinating matter of the complex of food webs that involve so many thousands of The author chooses as an epigraph for this predator-prey interactions: and arising from study the delightfully wise and witty remark this there is the critically important question attributed to King Alphonso X of Castile and for fisheries managers of the extent to which Leon that "if the Almighty had consulted me such interactions influence the growth rates before embarking on creation, I should have and ultimate stock size of particular species. recommended something simpler." Given our And lastly, there is the conclusion, almost own largely ineffectual efforts to comprehend stunning in its implications for those wishing the consequences of human exploitation upon to give the colour of scientific certainty to the fertility, growth and abundance of particu• mathematical stock assessments, that accurate lar members of multi-specied communities of long term predictions are very difficult, if at marine animals, one might wish that King all possible, because "we are usually uncertain Book Reviews 85

about what are the major determinants of one with a general interest in marine mam• species growth rates and because of natural mals and who is lucky enough to live in or variation in population parameters". visit this region of high marine mammal In the end we are left with the inference diversity and abundance. that, doomed to uncertainty, fisheries man• Whales and seals are described in com• agers can do no better, at least for the present, prehensive introductions which provide infor• than to choose an adaptive strategy for the mation on evolutionary history, basic body making of predictions of stock size, allowable features and behavioral characteristics. The catches and the like. This simply means that interactions between marine mammals and there is no known best single species or humans — whaling history, mortality due to systems model, but only ones that must be fishing gear, increasing chemical pollution and continuously reassessed and adapted to new the influence of expanding ship traffic on knowledge, or new assumptions predicated cetaceans — are also presented. Finally, more upon the best knowledge available. And even positive marine mammal/human interactions if our biological knowledge were to be com• are encouraged by tips against sea sickness plete, this would still be true; since we would and hints for photographers who want to still be dealing with environmental variables observe whales and seals. responsive to natural forces that would be Detailed descriptions of each species both uncontrollable and unpredictable. follow the introductions. These contain infor• This book then, does not give definitive mation on field marks, behaviour, reproduc• answers; but it is a most valuable work for all tive data, population status and the best times that. For scientists and those fully initiated for encountering the species in the different into the statistical mysteries it addresses a areas. Numerous pictures display species' number of perennially thorny questions in a typical characteristics and coloration, or fresh and incisive fashion; for fisheries man• certain types of behaviour. Moreover, Latin agers it is a valuable reminder of the healthy and, in some cases, common names are scepticism with which all existing mathemat• explained. A separate section introduces ical models of ecosystem dynamics should be readers to three non-mammalian "bonus" treated; For the general reader, it offers a species frequently encountered during whale- fascinating glimpse into the fantastically or seal-watching tours: the basking shark, the intricate interactions of numerous species of sunfish and the leatherback turtle. marine life forms inhabiting the Grand Bank The guide includes several useful appen• of Newfoundland. dices. One describes major prey species of marine mammals, such as herring or capelin. Leslie Harris A second compiles whale and seal watching St. John's, Newfoundland tours in North America, with addresses and details such as opening times and number of Steven Katona, Valerie Rough and David trips per day. The last appendix, an extensive Richardson. A Field Guide to Whales, Por• bibliography, provides easy access to refer• poises and Seals from Cape Cod to New• ences for each species described in the guide. foundland. 4th ed.; Washington, DC: Smith• Films, videos and records are also listed. sonian Institution Press, 1993. xix + 316 pp., Earlier editions of this book were already maps, figures, photographs, appendices, good. The new edition is improved again in bibliography, index. US $15.95, paper; ISBN several ways. Maps are graphically enhanced 1-56098-333-7. and new data on population levels and conser• vation are included. The number and quality This Field Guide will be a hit with the grow• of the photographs has increased considerably, ing number of whale watchers and with any• making it much easier to visualize important 86 The Northern Mariner

field marks. Finally, new data are included in In any event, it does not follow, pro forma , the book. For instance, the bearded seal, a that ships and men were readied because recent sighting in the area, has been added to Isabel and Fernando ordered it. One Pinzon- the list of species described in the guide. ista believed the monarchs never expected the This field guide provides basic informa• order to go beyond paper; it was common in tion on the biology of marine mammals in the Spanish Empire for orders to be obeyed easily understood terms. It has the potential to but not carried out. There were too many easy turn a complete layman into somebody with dodges, too many legitimate excuses for sound knowledge of marine mammals. While Pinzon to avoid or delay complying with the it focuses on the area from Cape Cod to New• wishes of the monarchs. foundland, it is valuable and helpful for any• However, in this instance Martin Alonso body interested in marine mammals. It also Pinzon complied because — for his own reas• provides essential information for successful ons — he believed in the enterprise. For years and enjoyable whale and seal watching tours. he had traded to the lands adjoining the The novice whale or seal watcher can become Atlantic waters, led illegal trading ventures familiar with the field marks of the species in into Portuguese territory on the West African an effortless and pleasant way. To make the coast, and on several occasions become in• book more practical, a summary of the most volved in skirmishes with the Portuguese, important fieldmarks of each species at the including the Four Years War. It is also end of the book would be helpful. The table alleged that on a trip to Italy he had visited of field marks for seals is one step in this the Vatican where he discussed with a know- direction. A brief section at the end of the ledgable friend the geography of the west book compiling the most obvious fieldmarks Atlantic and returned from the Papal Library and illustrated by photographs for quick and to Palos with charts of western seas and easy reference would also make the book islands. In short, Martin Alonso not only more valuable. Nevertheless, between two believed in Columbus' vision, but also (in covers, it is the best comprehensive guide to contrast to Columbus) was a man with a long marine mammals for the Northwest Atlantic. and successful history in Palos: a man who knew the seamen, ship owners and carpenters Christoph Richter and Jon Lien of Palos, Moguer and Huelva; had led risky St. John's, Newfoundland but successful money making trading expedi• tions. More to the point, he was a man who John Frye. Los Otros: Columbus and the had debts to call in. Three Who Made His Enterprise of the Indies After preparations in Palos and on the Succeed. Lewiston, NY & Queenston, ON: epoch making voyage itself, Martin Alonso, Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. vii + 117 pp., who commanded the Pinta, remained a domi• illustrations, bibliography, index. US $39.95, nant figure. While he stood behind Columbus cloth; ISBN 0-7734-9169-9. in the increasingly tense later stages of the voyage, he continually ran ahead and out of In 1492 the monarchs of Spain, having agreed the control of the Captain-General in the to support Columbus' Enterprise of the Indies, enterprise of discovery. This irritated directed Martin Alonso Pinzon, an influential Columbus, who consequently had very little merchant and ship owner in the small Atlantic and nothing good to say about Martin Alonso. port of Palos, to discharge an obligation to The two others who supported Columbus, the them by supplying ships to Columbus. Possib• commander of the Nina, Vincent Yanez ly this imposition was to punish Martin Alon• Pinzon, and Martin Alonso's younger brother so for poaching in Portuguese territory and and owner of the Santa Maria, Juan de la was intended to pacify King Joâo of Portugal. Costa, have much less substance in Frye's Book Reviews 87

account. Only later, after the 1492 voyage, do gap in the available literature. Arguing that a they emerge as important in the realm of sense of place, distance and movement is discovery and map-making, and their role particularly vital for students of imperial then is not directly connected with Columbus. history, the editor notes the absence of readily The exception to this is that both the younger accessible modern cartographical supports for Pinzon and de la Costa are strongly defended the field. This handy volume is Porter's in the incidents surrounding the grounding response. Thus, almost 140 maps, augmented and break up of the Santa Maria off the north by explanatory essays, are offered here at a coast of Hispaniola on Christmas Eve 1492. relatively moderate price. Spanning the kalei• Indeed, Frye's account of this wreck raises doscopic imperial experience in all its global questions about Columbus' conduct as a complexity, the atlas moves chronologically commander of the Santa Maria. from fifteenth-century Bristol through myriad John Frye's essay is short, imaginative, phases of formal and informal empire-build• speculative, and stimulating. His emphasis on ing to a snapshot of the Commonwealth after the nuts and bolts of the pre-voyage logistic the Falklands War. Thematically, it keeps support mounted in Palos is a fundamental pace with recent trends in imperial historio• and realistic note. In documenting the events graphy. Thus, it surveys the traditional empire which he imagines had to take place Frye of trade, politics and power, while also chart• necessarily has to turn to the Pleitos, the ing technological, demographic, urban and ad• record of litigation between 1508 and 1564 in ministrative dimensions of the imperial enter• which the heirs of Columbus sought to secure prise. In conception, therefore, this is a well- their claims related to the discovery of rounded, up-to-date and potentially valuable America and in which the Pinzon heirs came work. But is this self-imposed roving commis• forward with counter claims. Samuel Eliot sion successfully executed? Opinions will Morison considered the testimony in these vary. records as "self serving" and "rehearsed." Specialists, no doubt, will carp that their However, the same reservations need be particular interests find no expression in the expressed about other key documentation for book. Yet, judged by any reasonable standard, the period, namely Columbus' Diario and the compilers deserve high praise not only for correspondence, which fail to address the the number, but also for the variety and supporting role of Los Otros and most often originality of the maps provided. Thus, but puts them in a highly unfavourable light. Frye for Porter's efforts, we would search in vain does not prove his case but he clearly estab• for modem charts of British missionary end• lishes that his case is important and does it eavour round the globe. This said, however, it while providing a good read with many must also be noted that, with depth and range imaginative critical insights. balanced against cost and availability, the market equation dictated the use of black and David McGinnis white cartography. While aesthetically disap• Calgary, Alberta pointing, the time-honoured conventions of this style need entail no sacrifice of clarity A.N. Porter (ed.). The Atlas of British Over• when carefully employed. In this instance, seas Expansion. London: Routledge and New however, a number of the maps require some York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. x + 279 pp., refinements where intersecting diagonals or maps, references and suggested reading, broken dashes crowd the page, confuse the index. US $45, cloth; ISBN 0-13-051988-X. eye and leave the reader asking for an adjust• ment of scale. Consider, for example, the Designed primarily as an undergraduate rather too compact depiction of African teaching aid, Porter's atlas is meant to plug a exploration from 1856 to 1890 (p. 79) or the 88 The Northern Mariner

"crabbed nebula" illustrating eighteenth-cen• their inherent interest. Jones is the author of tury Pacific voyages (pp. 58-9). As for prin• Antarctica Observed and Ships Employed in ciples of selection, one can heartily applaud the South Seas Trade and has spent half a the inclusion of city plans while questioning century mining neglected and obscure print why Delhi appears but the commercially vital sources, to unearth the stories of a variety of Bombay does not. Similarly, one wonders explorers. Rather than concentrating on major why Winnipeg is mapped while the older and figures whose work has been exhaustively strategically significant Halifax is neglected. examined by others, he focuses on "the small Considering the text, it is largely success• unexamined fringes of the subject." ful within the compass of its properly limited What follows will give some idea of the ambition. Supporting the maps, relevant pass• varied nature of the topics covered. "Second ages are closely wedded with appropriate in Command: Armitage of the Discovery" illustrations so that frequent page-tuming is describes the career of A.B. Armitage, who happily unnecessary. Expert contributors served with Scott's 1903 expedition. Like introduce contemporary debates briefly and Ernest Shackleton, he was a merchant seaman point to further sources. Still, the text is rather rather than a naval officer, and it seems Scott too bald to serve all the needs of students who was never perfectly comfortable with either of will need one of many standard surveys to them for that reason. "Two Naval Medical supplement their reading. Explorers" describes the careers of naval Whether instructors will favour this atlas surgeons Edward Atkinson and Murray Lev- over Christopher Bayly's lush Atlas of the ick. "John Biscoe's Voyage Around the World British Empire (Facts on File, 1989) remains 1830-33" is well illustrated with maps and to be seen. Where Porter's collection has sketches by Roger Finch. "First into the Ross range and depth, Bayly's offers a smaller Sea" raises the possibility that Samuel Harvey number of beautifully executed, full-colour in the barque Venus was the first to enter the maps. In any event, libraries and collectors Ross Sea, in 1831, not Sir James Clark Ross. will want copies of both works; together they "The Dangerous Voyage of Captain Thomas go a long way towards charting the physical James 1631-32" is of particular Canadian realities of empire for the fledgling historian. interest; it describes the sufferings of men attempting to traverse the Northwest Passage. James G. Greenlee They overwintered in James Bay in impro• Comer Brook, Newfoundland vised huts. Dr John Rae, who later discovered the fate of the Franklin expedition, visited the A.G.E. Jones. Polar Portraits: Collected site in 1833, and his journal mentions the Papers. Whitby, UK: Caedmon of Whitby, presence of huts, presumably those built by 1992 [order from: Caedmon of Whitby, James and his party, two centuries earlier. "Headlands," 128 Upgang Lane, Whitby, "Scott's Transport 1911-12," originally North Yorkshire Y021 3JJ]. 428 pp., maps, published in Polarboken in 1977, is a careful photographs, illustrations, tables, index. analysis of Scott's use of dogs, ponies, motor £17.50, paper; ISBN 0-905355-37-7. sledges and skis. Jones is a man of definite opinions, and shares the view of others, that This eclectic miscellany is the product of a Scott committed major errors of organization. small English specialty publishing house. It Thus, Jones maintains that Scott had a nasty reproduces fifty papers originally published in propensity to hurl blame for the expedition's various specialty journals between 1950 and failures in all directions except towards its 1985. They were photocopied, not reset; this leader, for Scott tended to "make up his mind result in a lack of uniformity of type size and in advance and was not prepared to change it formatting, though this does not detract from in the light of events." While other explorers Book Reviews 89 found dogs extremely useful, it appears that as a human being, seafarer, self-taught scien• Scott's sled-dogs died because they were und• tist and leader par excellence. They have erfed. The Siberian ponies were plucky made maximum use of their locale, inviting enough but had problems keeping their foot• the reader to a fascinating "walkabout" ing in the soft snow, even when fitted with through the areas of Great Ayton, Staithes and improvised snowshoes. Carsten Borchgrevinck Whitby, all the time emphasizing the enor• had demonstrated the usefulness of skis in mous influence these places and their resi• 1900, and of course skis enabled Amundsen's dents must have had on young James. The party to reach the pole first. Tryggve Gran, a Stamps clearly feel an immense pride in the Norwegian member of Scott's expedition, had relationship they share with Cook through purchased skis in Oslo, but Scott's ambiva• their city of Whitby, Yorkshire. lence about their usefulness is revealed in his It must be stated that no other book has journal. The motor sledges were to a signifi• been as complete as this one about James cant extent designed by Scott himself, but Cook's early years and thus a gap has been proved unsatisfactory in the Antarctic condi• filled, and filled capably. Cook's father tions. Jones argues that Scott's training in the receives credit for being such a hard-working, machine shop in HMS Vernon gave him the God-fearing and humble man. The Stamps self-confidence to tackle this technical matter, picture father and son on solitary walks along but his lack of practical experience in engin• the trails surrounding Ayreholm Farm. Great eering resulted in his getting in over his head. ideas must have ripened in young James' Ernest Shackleton's men had the greatest mind, for such walks were never the wander• confidence in their leader. "Shackleton's ings of lesser spirits. Amazing Rescue 1916" describes the explor• Young James learned to eat the coarsest er's heroic trip across South Georgia to the of foods and ate it all, thus putting him on the whaling station at Stromness, and the saga of path of an extraordinary digestion all his life. his four attempts to rescue the party left on The Stamps believe that this would have Elephant Island. offered Cook an early insight into scurvy, the In short, this collection of articles will bane of seamen before the nineteenth century fascinate all who are interested in polar explo• and a sickness which Cook later took great ration. pride in having defeated after thorough per• sonal study, mainly from nature. It was indeed John H. Harland one of his greatest achievements. Kelowna, British Columbia The Stamps highlight Cook's emergence as a searching, knowledge-hungry, tireless Tom and Cordelia Stamp. James Cook Mari• youngster, who wished to rise at any price time Scientist. Whitby, UK: Caedmon of from an ordinary station in life to one of Whitby, 1978, reprinted 1993. xiv + 159 pp., quiet, useful and above all blessed promi• illustrations, photographs, chronology, appen• nence. His Quaker upbringing, his fearless dices, bibliography, index. £6,50, paper; ISBN and persistent nature brought him good con• 0-905355-04-0. tacts and several benefactors of note who clearly recognized the youth's rich talents: This compact narrative on the life of James Lord Stokkowe of Great Ayton, the Sander• Cook is a skilfully composed, smoothly sons of Staithes, the Walkers of Whitby and written story meant to give us the man who later the Royal Navy Captains Palliser and was Cook all by himself, devoid of any Simcoe. Their trust stimulated Cook immense• outside distractions such as close associates or ly. Thus, under the Walkers, Cook became friends. Wherever possible the authors have seriously involved with shipping and naviga• attempted to accentuate Cook's uncanny worth tion in particular, and his later choice of 90 The Northern Mariner

exploration vessels was shaped by his early Vancouver, five have no connection with him, and proven knowledge of the flat-bottomed while the rest fall between. Taken together, colliers (cats), so superbly built in the ship• they provide a broad study of Pacific history, yards of the small city "by the German Sea." including the aboriginal history of the Cana• He had sailed them for many years, he knew dian west coast. their sturdiness and great manoeuvrability. On the Vancouver voyage we have papers As far as Cook's naval career is con• by Andrew David on survey methods, Alun cerned the Stamps rely heavily — by their own Davies on chronometers, Alan Frost on the admission — on the superb writings of Rev. political factors which led to Vancouver's George Young (1836). They cleverly lift voyage, W. Kaye Lamb on the Menzies jour• "Cook the Man" out of the journals while nal, and Glyndwr Williams on theoretical geo• smartly spelling off serious passages with graphy. The technical papers by David and witty quotes which are never boring. In the Davies reflect the usual competence of the final pages the Stamps also explore Cook's authors and are particularly useful to those credentials as a marine scientist. Here they interested in how things were done. Frost's should have considered elaborating on the paper is a well-researched and thorough expo• presence of two famous shipmates, the botan• sition of the convolutions of British trade and ist Joseph Banks and the naturalist Dr. imperialism which gave the eighteenth century Solander. Evaluation of their sterling work much of its Pacific political history. Frost would have strengthened this discussion. insists that the first Nootka convention in Moreover, the journal references to events 1790 established "British control over half a after Cook's arrival on the northwest coast of continent." (p.104) That convention stopped North America (Cape Flattery, March 1778) war preparations but it settled nothing. Under suddenly become incoherent and confusing. the third convention in 1794, it was agreed Overall, the Stamps have turned out a that neither Britain nor Spain would set up a very creditable book, painting the picture of permanent establishment or claim any right of Cook's youth, his growing years, his naval sovereignty. The Lamb and Williams papers career, his incredible achievements, his hor• cast light on their respective subjects; the rendous death, very well indeed. They create editors were wise to include them. the impression in the reader of having spent Aboriginal history and culture are the many hours in the presence of a majestic subjects of papers by Christon Archer on the human being: the seaman's seaman. The book manipulation of the natives by the Spanish, is therefore warmly recommended. Yvonne Marshall on the interrelationships among the native communities, the late Indian Hendrik (Hank) J. Barendregt historian Louis Miranda on the first contact of Langley, British Columbia the Squamish nation with Vancouver, and Victoria Wyatt on the reflection of white Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston (eds.). From contact in Indian art. Archer summarizes the Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of history of Spanish expeditions to the North• George Vancouver. Vancouver: UBC Press, west Coast, then describes the volatile rela• 1993. viii + 355 pp., illustrations, maps. tionship between the Spanish at the Nootka $39.95, hard cover; ISBN 0-7748-0470-X outpost and the Mowachaht. He shows how the Spanish manipulated the Indians to gain This is a collection of fourteen of the thirty their support in the Nootka dispute with five contributions to the 1992 Vancouver Britain, and how Maquinna in turn manipu• Conference on Exploration and Discovery. lated the Spanish and others to gain control of They cover a much broader subject range than the lucrative sea otter trade. The score was: the subtitle suggests. Five are about Maquinna 1, Spain 0. Marshall makes a brave Book Reviews 91 attempt to sort out family and political rela• shows how Cook discerned the linguistic and tionships among the Indian communities in cultural similarities within the Polynesian the eighteenth century. All she has to go on triangle, which the aboriginal people did not are the Eurocentric observations of white know of themselves, and which many whites reporters. European alliances were expressed did not believe. Howe, as mentioned, develops in dynastic marriages, and the reporters tried the theme of Europeans trying to make native to fit their observations into such a pattern. Polynesian societies fît a familiar pattern. The confederacy Marshall postulates probably They had to be like the Greeks, or someone; did not exist; Archer describes the continual they could not be just Polynesians. Gibson but fluctuating feuds between the various reminds us of the Russian presence in the bands. The question of the Eurocentric Pacific, and explains why they appeared to observer is explored by Howe, whose paper outsiders as dilatory. Mackay, in similar vein we shall come to. to Finney and Howe, describes how the There is obviously nothing Eurocentric in received wisdom of the existence of a vast Miranda's paper, presented by Chief Philip southern continent influenced exploration and Joe. It reflects the pride of his nation, the politics in the Pacific, but in my view he goodwill his people so often express towards carries his own Burden of Terra Australis (his the whites of our day, and the recognition that title) in trying to make his case that explorers both groups will and must live together in the and even fur traders until 1840 were always future. Native oral history is valuable, and can seeking the image of that presumed continent. be reliable in a number of cases. But as a It is gratifying to see a good book well friendly word of caution to Chief Joe, I would printed and bound, this one to the design of point out that some of the stories are highly George Vaitkunas. portable. Vancouver did not meet his ances• tors at Squamish in an island with skeleton John Kendrick trees stretching skyward; he came in a ship's Vancouver, British Columbia boat. Also, the paper gives Nanaimo as the setting for the story of Indians believing that Robert L. Richards. Dr. John Rae. Whitby: white men had wooden feet. My first encoun• Caedmon of Whitby, 1985 [128, Upgang ter with the story was among the Nuu-chah- Lane, Whitby, North Yorkshire, Y021 3JJ, nulth on the west coast of Vancouver Island. England], xxii + 231 pp., maps, photographs, It is impossible to give adequate space in appendices, bibliography, index. £10.50 (+£1 this review to fourteen presentations. I can shipping), paper; ISBN 0-905355-29-6. only mention Wyatt's analysis of the reflec• tions of white themes in Indian art in the Ian Bunyan, Jenni Calder, Dale Idiens, and nineteenth century, which does not do her jus• Bryce Wilson. No Ordinary Journey: John tice. This leaves us with the broad Pacific, Rae, Arctic Explorer 1813-1893. Edinburgh: with treatments by Ben Finney on Cook's dis• National Museums of Scotland and Kingston covery of Polynesia, James Gibson on Russian & Montréal: McGill-Queen's University exploration, K.D. Howe on the intellectual Press, 1993. x + 116 pp., maps, illustrations, discovery of Polynesia, David Mackay on photographs, appendices. $42.95, cloth; ISBN Terra Australis, and Anne Salmond on the 0-7735-1106-7 (in Scotland, 0-948636-39-4). abduction of two Maoris to Norfolk Island, $19.95, paper; ISBN 0-7735-1107-5 (in where they were treated as honoured guests Scotland, 0-948636-38-6). and returned to their home when it was learned that they did not know how to dress In August 1993 an international expedition flax. The two related topics of Finney and announced it was planning to recover the Howe make a number of valid points. Finney remains of a thirty-foot keel with ribs 92 The Northern Mariner attached from a site on Prince of Wales Land strated how much could be achieved by in the Canadian arctic. The find reported by a travelling light and living off the land. Rae local Inuit is believed to be connected with abhorred the reliance placed on tents, heavy Sir John Franklin's ill-fated last voyage. By clothing and conventional stores to say noth• coincidence that year also marked the centen• ing of the rigid discipline that he considered ary of the death of John Rae who, in 1854, had no place when combatting nature. Fur• also as a result of Inuit contacts, was the first thermore Rae was the subject of ill-informed person to provide definite evidence that criticism because he did not personally follow misfortune had befallen the crews of HMS up the information supplied to him by Inuit Erebus and Terror several years earlier. regarding the final resting place of Franklin's Initially Rae signed on in 1833 as a men. As Richards shows this emanated from ship's surgeon for a round trip to Hudson armchair critics with no idea of true circum• Bay. Later he became a full-time member of stances and the naval lobby jealous that staff with the Hudson's Bay Company in despite so much effort the Royal Navy had whose service he travelled extensively in failed to achieve its objective. northern latitudes. Between 1844 and 1854 he To celebrate Rae's assured place in the is recorded as having journeyed 6,555 miles history of Arctic exploration the National on foot, 6,700 miles by boat and in the course Museums of Scotland has issued a commem• of four expeditions surveyed 1,765 miles of orative volume, No Ordinary Journey, to hitherto unmapped land and coastline. accompany exhibitions arranged by NMS and To Rae these were "ordinary journeys" the Orkney Museum Service to mark his life conducted in the normal course of his em• and achievements. A similar display is on ployment. Unlike the formal well-equipped show in Canada. Within the limited space expeditions mounted by the Royal Navy in its available the authors afford the reader a quest to find the north west passage, Rae comprehensive picture of the efforts made in relied on small teams comprised of one or the nineteenth century to survey and map two Europeans and half-breed Indians sup• Canada's northern frontier. What makes the ported by Inuit interpreters which lived off book outstanding is the choice and quality of the land, and at times wintered in snow its illustrations. All too often original prints houses. Despite their lack of fresh vegetables, are reproduced in sombre black and white but unlike their naval counterparts, rarely did they here, to take one example, a well known suffer from scurvy. lithograph of HMS Investigator trapped in The late Dr. Richards produced a very pack ice is stunning in its original colour. readable account of Rae's life and the contro• There are many more including colour repro• versies that subsequently may have been ductions placed alongside modem photographs responsible for him not receiving the recogni• of the same sites, all adding to the enjoyment tion in his lifetime to which he felt entitled. of the work. A series of maps, albeit of a Dismissed as a "fur trader" he was denied the small scale, are of high quality with the routes knighthood that others enjoyed for less effort. of various expeditions picked out in colour. Honoured by the Royal Geographical Society A minor quibble is the incorrect state• where he lectured on his work and a regular ment that the recently married Sir James contributor to scientific journals on aspects of Clark Ross declined to accept the leadership polar flora and fauna Rae nevertheless of the expedition, subsequently lead by Frank• antagonised an influential element of The lin, because he was still fatigued after his Establishment — the Admiralty. Frequently he successful voyage to Antarctica. In fact, he was critical of what he regarded as the spend• refused because he had given his father-in-law thrift manner in which the Board approached an undertaking not to engage in further haz• polar exploration, having himself demon• ardous exploration. In the event, as a matter Book Reviews 93 of honour, he did return to the Arctic in between the theory and the practice of command of one of the parties sent to search science; between the professionals and the for his colleague. Although most of the auth• amateurs; between the circumpolar nations; oritative works about the Franklin expedition between science and empire (science and are out of print it is also to be regretted that sovereignty, in modem terms); between the authors failed to provide a reading list for scientists and their instruments. those who will be encouraged by this book to Indeed, scientific instruments seem to be learn more about this important period in the a particular interest of Levere's. His lucid history of the opening up of northern Canada. exposition of these instruments and their pur• Each book is recommended in its own poses and of the continual refinements in their right but taken together they make a major design and manufacture will be very welcome contribution towards the rehabilitation of John to those of us accustomed to thinking of their Rae and the part he played in the course of role in Arctic exploration as no more than be• his twenty-three years with the Hudson's Bay wildering bits of baggage that tended to get Company to bring to a wider public the way smashed or freeze to people's fingers. The of life and culture of the Inuit, a people he author's emphasis on scientific instruments is admired and who in return respected him. not just the riding of a hobby-horse. As he reminds us, the Baconian belief in the value Norman Hurst of observation is central to modern science; Coulsdon, Surrey science would be greatly impoverished, were it limited to what can be observed by our un- Trevor H. Levere. Science and the Canadian amplified senses. Levere's emphasis on rela• Arctic; A Century of Exploration, 1818-1918. tionships gives his book a liveliness and com• Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, plexity which enables readers to enter imagin• 1993. xiv + 438 pp., illustrations, maps, atively into his view of the sciences as "an photographs, index. US $64.95, cloth; ISBN enterprise impossible to complete," (p. 241) in 0-521-41933-6. which "whether it be through refining or ex• tending past observations, or moving to new Science and the Canadian Arctic is a history questions requiring new data, scientists will of scientific exploration, from John Ross to always be engaged in an unfinished quest." (p. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, in what is now the 426) The book is about one century of the Canadian Arctic. Yet it is no earnest plod "unfinished quest" in one part of the world, down the decades, with one expedition after yet it provides the layperson with a new another remorselessly ticked off. Levere does understanding of the scientific enterprise in cover a lot of expeditions, concentrating on general — an enterprise certainly noble and at the scientific ones, so that, for example, Sir times heroic, yet conducted by men with John Richardson is given a welcome amount differing motives and capacities in response to of space and Peary is barely mentioned. Yet personal, cultural and political imperatives. the book is far from being a duty read. The book also offers a new view of The book has a certain Victorian ampli• Arctic history to set beside the traditional one tude; Levere paints on a broad canvas but he with its bias towards the heroic and what is always willing to pause for the vivid quota• might be called the post-modern one, in tion and the moving or humorous anecdote. which the heroes become fools. It is refresh• Like a Victorian novel, in fact, Science and ing to see them instead as men of science. the Canadian Arctic gains its dramatic force While Science and the Canadian Arctic is from its emphasis on relationships: between in general an impressive display of wide and organizations such as the Royal Society, the well-integrated scholarship, it has to be said Admiralty and the Hudson's Bay Company; that Levere is not as at home with the history 94 The Northern Mariner

of the Hudson's Bay Company as he is with on the Roman Empire, eighteenth-century the rest of his material. This shows in small France, Italy in the nineteenth century, Russia ways, which I will refrain from pointing out in the twentieth century, and Argentina. There specifically and, more importantly, in what is also a translation of an article on tactical seemed to me his difficulty in fitting the command by S.O. Makarov, the brilliant Rus• Company into the whole structure of the book sian admiral killed in the Russo-Japanese war, as deftly as he does all its other components. ably interpreted by Canada's David R. Jones, Thus, when he discusses the Royal Society and a previously unpublished study of French and seventeenth-century science and explora• tactical treatises of the eighteenth and nine• tion, I kept expecting the Company (founded teenth century written by Admiral Gabriel in 1670 and with close links to the Society) to Darrieus in 1910. appear. Instead, the connection between the The emphasis in these essays is on exten• Company and the Society is not actually sive quotation from the thinkers, and biblio• mentioned, and only briefly, at that, (p.191) graphy. This is, in the words of the editor, an I mention this not to criticize Levere, "Archaeology of Naval Thought," an assembly who has done his best with an unfamiliar field "of materials for history to be written." (p.7) and who has made good use of the recent He is too modest. There is plenty of analysis, work by Debra Lindsay on the Company and not least in the editor's own helpful introduc• the Smithsonian, but, strange as it may seem, tion. Especially prominent is the effort to to praise him. The history of the Hudson's rescue the French theorists of the eighteenth Bay Company is a major part of our national century from Raoul Castex's enduring denun• history, yet it has tended to remain isolated ciation of them in 1911 as ivory tower geom• almost as a form of regional history. Scholars eters whose obsession with symmetrical brave enough to drag it into the mainstream manoeuvres ignored the ultimate importance are to be congratulated. of combat. The essays by Hubert Granier and The book is interestingly and copiously François Caron suggest that Castex took the illustrated, and the map printed on the inside writers out of the context of the times: the cover is an optician's delight. It is a pity that enormous difficulties of effectively controlling there is no bibliography to gather together fleets of sail, and the frequent need, given the Levere's wide reading in a convenient form. disadvantage at which France usually fought at sea, to manoeuvre adroitly to avoid Anne Morton superior forces. Yet the authors admit that Winnipeg, Manitoba Castex was partly right. The point is driven home by exaggeration to the opposite extreme Hervé Coutau-Bégarie (éd.). L'Évolution de la in Admiral Darrieus' study, which inflated the Pensée Navale III. Paris: Centre d'analyse eighteenth century authors' references to politique comparée, 1993 [order from: Fonda• aggressive, big-ship squadron warfare to tion pour les études de défense nationale, promote a Mahanian policy for France. Hôtel National des Invalides, 75007 Paris]. Also analytical is Jurgen Rohwer's pres• 231 pp., illustrations, tables. 100 FFr, paper; entation of sources from recently opened Rus• ISSN 0291-4654. sian archives on the Soviet swings in 1921-41 from a big-ship, Blue Water policy, to small The object of this book, like the series of ship coast defence and back to big ships. The which it forms a part, is "to break with a result, as Rohwer demonstrates in fresh detail, single vision [of naval thought] dominated by was that Mahanian elements of Tsarist policy, only Anglo-Saxon authors" and bring to light together with some prominent veterans of the the work of lesser known thinkers of other Imperial fleet and their protégés, endured the nations. This volume features extended essays shifts and purges to win renewed influence on Book Reviews 95 the eve of World War II. collection of documents on the development Successful as the volume is in highlight• of British naval history which would serve ing little known writers outside of the "Anglo- both as an introduction to the beginner and as Saxon" sphere, its greater achievement is to a basis for further enquiry by the more expert. show that these thinkers were engaged in an The clever organization of the volume, international dialogue in which the British and the careful selection of its contents and its Americans had a prominent place. There is very professional execution make this a most material that suggests the mutual influence of useful and valuable contribution to the history the French genius for naval science and theory of British seapower. The volume is organized and the British gift for practice in the eight• in seven chronological parts, each with a eenth century. Mahan's global impact and the general introduction and extensive reference interplay of his ideas with the Jeune Ecole is notes to the most critical and recent sources. well documented, as are the common threads In turn, each part is divided into five themes with which most of the thinkers featured in (Policy and Strategy; Tactics and Operations; these essays grappled: how best to adopt Administration; Material and Weapons; and changing technology in the face of the par• Personnel) with an overview and edited pri• ticular geographic, political and economic mary sources. For instance, Part V examines circumstances of each nation. In this connec• major developments in the Royal Navy during tion, I hope that the editor does not see the the period 1714-1815, with documents ar• "Anglo-Saxons" as too much of a monolith. ranged according to the five themes. The The essays on Italy and Argentina, two editors have successfully overcome the chal• smaller powers with long coastlines, evoked lenge to flow and continuity, producing a the experience of Canada, Australia and New functional resource for all levels of interest Zealand since 1870, as the effectiveness of and experience. The breadth of subjects British protection and the usefulness of Ad• addressed by the documents also satisfies the miralty advice came into question. eclectic requirements of "new" military his• Jean Pages, who translated five of the tory enthusiasts. essays, is to be congratulated. The published Enhancing British Naval Documents texts are in a clear French that, in its flashes 1204-1960 is a List of Sources which ident• of irony and humour, undoubtedly captures ifies the location and file information of the the spirit of the original languages. 535 documents quoted. Also included is an extensive glossary of nautical words and Roger Sarty phrases found throughout the documents, an Ottawa, Ontario essential addendum to a work covering seven centuries with many changes and variations in John B. Hattendorf, R.J.B. Knight, A.W.H. naval and nautical terminology. Equally Pearsall, N.A.M. Rodger and Geoffrey Till important and useful is the comprehensive (eds.). British Naval Documents 1204-1960. Subject Index, where entries are dated as well Aldershot, Hants, and Brookfield, VT: Scolar as cross-referenced for ease of finding. Press for the Navy Records Society, 1993. The theme that emerges out of the docu• xviii +1192 pp., frontispiece, maps, abbrevi• ments is the adaption of the British navy as ations, glossary, list of sources, bibliography, an instrument of national policy to constantly indices. US $109.95, cloth; ISBN 0-85967- changing internal and external circumstances: 947-0. political, economic, social, and technical. A naval organization existed prior to 1204 but This is the centenary volume of the Navy the editors cite the dearth of documentation as Records Society. The aim of the editors was the reason for beginning at that date. Early to produce a representative yet comprehensive sources such as "Libelle of Englyshe Polycye" 96 The Northern Mariner

(ca 1436) suggest that the British navy Richard Harding. Amphibious Warfare in the evolved from the threefold need to keep the Eighteenth Century: The British Expedition to kingdom secure, encourage trade, and com• the West Indies, 1740-1742. Royal Historical mand the "Narrow Seas." The documents Society Studies in History, No. 62; Wood- develop this theme beginning with England's bridge, UK and Rochester, NY: Boydell & early competition with France, which pro• Brewer, for the Royal Historical Society vided the stimulus to develop sea-power, 1991. x + 248 pp., illustrations, appendices through to World War II. The evolution from (tables, maps), select bibliography, index. £35, a small island state to the world's preeminent US $70, cloth; ISBN 0-86193-218-8. maritime power and then decline was both a challenging and difficult process where cost "Gripping" is an adjective seldom used to and complexity increased with the march of describe a book with maps but no pictures responsibility and technology. The editors and, on average, with three or four footnotes have achieved excellent balance in selecting per page. Yet it is a fair description of this documents to represent this history. study of amphibious warfare based on the The great appeal of British Naval Docu• failed British expedition to the West Indies in ments 1204-1960 is that it presents the con• the 1740s. Derived from the author's 1985 temporary viewpoint of persons at all levels PhD thesis for London University, the book involved with the entire spectrum of day to examines four subjects: the political decision day as well as long term problems concerned to declare war on Spain in 1739, the expedi• with building and maintaining Britain's naval tion to Cartagena; following that failure, the power. The volume explores with equal attempts on Guantanamo and Panama, and diligence the failures and successes, defeats as finally the place of amphibious warfare within well as victories. The organization enables the a larger general strategic appreciation of war. generalist to follow an overview while the In discussing the move to war and the specialist can trace specific developments circumstances and action of the West Indies chronologically in pertinent sections through expedition, Harding directly challenges many the successive parts. For example, under the of the accepted conclusions relating to those Personnel heading the perennial problem of events. He notes that the hitherto accepted fleet manning can be traced from 1315 in accounts have been based largely on the documents citing a shortage of archers to pioneering work of Admiral Sir Herbert 1888 when armourers for new weaponry was Richmond, The Navy in the War of 1739-48, the problem. Similarly,the subjects of enlist• which was published in 1920. Harding points ment, conditions of service, discipline and out that this work was in fact completed impressment could be examined in the per• before 1914 and was shaped within the con• sonal letters and official papers presented. text of the then-current debate of the role of British Naval Documents 1204-1960 is a the navy within imperial defence and of the scholarly and exceptionally well executed need for naval reform. Harding maintains that historical reference work with wide appeal in Richmond's "didactic approach to history can the long tradition of excellence of the Navy no longer be accepted." (p. 13) Harding also Records Society. While expensive, it repre• acknowledges the difficulties under which sents an excellent investment in a book of Richmond worked, by comparison with the enduring value that serious students of British modem researcher. Today there is much naval history and university libraries should greater access to the collections of the Public not be without. Record Office, many private collections are more readily available, and travel to other Wilf Lund archives is both more common and much Victoria, British Columbia easier. Harding's broadly based research Book Reviews 97

conclusively shows that "the sources upon unnecessary and dangerous" (p. 165) is fair. which historians have usually relied for des• However, the implication that it is acceptable criptions of the expeditions of 1740-42 are in the post-industrial age, without elaborating extremely unreliable and consequently the improved staff procedures and better under• conclusions drawn from them are misleading." standing of other services, is less sound. (p. 150) The principal difficulty is that Ver• In sum, Harding's work offers not only non's account, which was the basis of many an indispensable account of the West Indies analyses, including both Richmond's as well expedition but also an important contribution as Basil Williams' interpretation of the politi• to the history and discussion of amphibious cal events of the period, was highly selective warfare. It is unfortunate that this book will and omitted anything which reflected credit probably be limited to library collections. on Major General Wentworth, the army Only price precludes the recommendation, commander, or discredit upon himself. Vernon "mandatory for all eighteenth-century and is also responsible for the belief that the military historians." political leaders were vacillating and not equal to the task of organizing the expedition pro• William Glover perly. Harding raises the standard of the Nepean, Ontario historiography of this campaign to new levels, as had Richmond's in his day and which Marjorie Hubbell Gibson. H.M.S. Somerset, Harding has now replaced. Harding's direct 1746-1778: The Life and Times of an Eight• writing style with which he presents his new eenth Century British Man-O-War and her material gives the narrative that gripping Impact on North America. Cotuit, MA: Abbey quality which compels one to read on. Gate House, 1992 [order from the author at: The last chapter offers a stimulating Box 1404 Cotuit, MA 02635]. 252 pp. illus• discussion of the place of amphibious warfare trations. US $19 plus shipping; available to within the larger framework of war in the universities, libraries, museums and bookshops eighteenth century. Harding reviews the dev• at US $12 plus shipping. elopments of fortifications that Vernon did not recognize and which contributed to the This is a small yet important contribution to West Indies failure. He also explores the the maritime history of North America and relationship between the army and the navy in British naval history. The Somerset had a amphibious operations, by which he means busy career in the east coast waters of North operations where the army remains dependent America, playing a role in British blockade on the sea for its support. Harding argues that and amphibious operations during the Seven the organization of the West Indies expedition Years' War and the War of the American remained the basis for future planning, con• Revolution. She was laid down in Chatham in cluding that it was not the plan that failed but 1746, and her construction and armament is the individuals, and possibly the command discussed in this book. The author weaves a structure. What was clearly necessary was an social and political context into the account, understanding by one of the service com• and explains why the Somerset was sent to manders of the other's difficulties and prob• North America and to the Mediterranean. She lems, and an ability to work with another has also researched painstakingly the con• service. None of this was in evidence in the struction and modification of this 3rd-rate, 64- West Indies expedition. Indeed, amphibious gun vessel, thereby adding to our understand• operations were probably more complicated ing of the history of shipbuilding in this era. than was properly understood at the time. In Her sources are principally the relevant Ad• that context, Harding's suggestion, that "in the miralty records and Massachusetts State Arch• eighteenth century unified command was ives documents. 98 The Northern Mariner

As with HMS Warspite of yesteryear, the pressures and constraints under which they HMS Somerset always seemed to be in or operated and argues they have been unjustly near the action. She patrolled off Louisbourg blamed for mistakes not of their making, in in Boscawen's fleet, chasing unknown ships events frequently out of their control. Bri• of the French fleet, and she entered Louis• tain's imperial commitments, dependence on bourg harbour with the victorious British trade, limited population and resources are squadron. In 1759 she worked her way up the clearly explained and every advantage Britain St. Lawrence to the Isle of Coudres, and later enjoyed matched by its corresponding disad• came to the river narrows at Quebec at the vantage. He examines the problems facing time of the French surrender. A quiet and Cabinets, in making vital decisions with varied time followed, and in the 1770s the inadequate information, using Foreign Office Somerset again saw particular service. In archives and ministers' private papers, to April 1775 she played important relief work illustrate Britain's difficulties, in persuading for the British army exhausted after the European powers that their interests and those Battles of Lexington and Concord. In Novem• of Britain agreed, or in coping with rivalries ber 1779 she was wrecked on Cape Cod which threatened joint operations. Hall is during a storm, and has been the subject of an equally at home in tracing domestic con• interesting salvage history. straints, the lack of resources and, a vital As a line of historical work, writing ship factor in this period, the force of patronage history is a significant calling. New insight is and political influence in the appointment of gained about finance and construction, arma• commanders. Nor does he ignore the crucial ment and stores, instructions and missions, factor of logistics when considering the effec• etc. The story of the Somerset was well worth tiveness of operations or commenting on recovering from the dusty files. Not least in Cabinet plans. All this is expertly done and importance it will contribute better to our very readable. understanding of the problems of British men- Thus, although Napoleon was not totally of-war operating in these difficult waters. prepared for war in 1803, his invasion plans still posed a real threat to Britain, preventing Barry Gough overseas expeditions and concentrating Waterloo, Ontario resources on home defence. Addington's seeming strategic lethargy is thus convincingly Christopher D. Hall. British Strategy in the explained. Hall redeems that undramatic Napoleonic War 1803-1815. Manchester and minister from earlier charges of inefficiency New York: Manchester University Press, and claims that his government laid the foun• 1992. xiii + 239 pp., maps, appendices, bibli• dations on which Pitt built the Third Coali• ography, index. US $59.95, cloth; ISBN 0- tion. For Pitt's strategy, on returning to office 7190-3606-2. Distributed in Canada and the in 1804, underwent a change from that of the USA by St. Martin's Press, New York. 1790s. The emphasis was no longer on the capture of French colonies. British resources The opening chapters of this book address were now too stretched to conquer and garri• particular themes — manpower, money, poli• son Caribbean islands. Rather, Pitt's efforts tics, strategic options — which form the back• were directed to the formation of a coalition ground for those which examine the responses against French hegemony. The great import• of ministries from Addington to Liverpool. ance placed on this is illustrated by his will• For Hall the heroes of these years are not the ingness, in the last resort, to surrender Malta military commanders, but the neglected politi• to secure a Russian alliance. Pitt's failure cians who planned the strategy and provided prompted his immediate successors to pursue the means to achieve success. He describes more purely British interests. Yet it was only Book Reviews 99 by defeating Napoleon in Europe and on land Barbara A. Lynch and John E. Vajda (rev.). that the war could be won. Portland, Perceval United States Naval History: A Bibliography. and Liverpool, Pitt's true successors, 7th ed., Naval History Bibliographies, No. 1 ; recognised this strategy and from 1808 com• Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1993. mitted Britain to it. So the elimination of viii + 173 pp., index. US $6.50, paper; ISBN remaining French bases, in the Caribbean and 0-945274-12-2. the Indian Ocean, by 1810, initiated no change in a European-centred strategy. It was This is a revision of the sixth edition, issued prompted by enemy preoccupations elsewhere in 1972. It is not a comprehensive bibliogra• and carried out by forces as small as was phy of US naval history, nor does it pretend compatible with success. Britain's major to be. As Dean Allard, Director of Naval thrust was in Spain, yet the importance of the History for the US, points out in his fore• Western Mediterranean and the Baltic could word, this is a selective bibliography that not be ignored and domestic and imperial strives to present major works in the field, defence still needed to be taken into account. journal articles as well as monographs, anthol• While there is little that is new in Hall's ogies and other bibliographies. The selection material, or in parts of his interpretation, he was not limited to works specifically on the presents his argument cogently and clearly. US Navy but includes works in others fields, He considers the judgements of some earlier such as British or Japanese naval history, and historians as too facile or uninformed or general campaign — i.e., largely army — prejudiced — for example, in taking Welling• histories, that have something substantial to ton's complaints of shortages in the Peninsu• say about the American naval experience. The lar too literally — quoting supportive docu• revision includes not only new works since mentary evidence to prove his case while 1972, but also some additions of earlier works trying, himself, not to fall into the trap of omitted in the previous edition. All of the judging from hindsight. This is a salutary test references are from open and, for the most for any historian and Dr. Hall passes it. There part, easily accessible sources. is little mention here of the effects of econ• The bibliography is organized in a combi• omic warfare on the later stages of the war, nation of chronology and theme. It begins and a conclusion which discussed this would with general works and chronologies, fol• have been appropriate, since the book ends lowed by pictorial histories. Most listings fall abruptly. The appendices are interesting, under two broad headings, Naval History by though comparative figures for other years, if Period, starting with the American Revolution available, would have made them more useful. and finishing in 1991, and Special Subjects. But an admirable range of sources is listed in The naval history entries are, in rum, subdi• the comprehensive bibliography and the book vided into thematic headings. World War II, is a notable addition to the series "War, for example, contains listings for general Armed Forces and Society." Hall makes the works, Atlantic and Pacific theatres and tangled strategic options as exciting to read biography. Titles which fall into more than about as the battles which formed part of one category are repeated where appropriate. them and places the maritime history of the The volume ends with sections on US Coast period in a wider context which will prove Guard history, biographies, biographical valuable to the professional historian and the listings and registers, periodicals, bibliogra• general reader. phies and research aids, and an author index. The bibliography also indicates clearly P.K. Crimmin where the interest of American scholars lies. Englefield Green, Surrey, England Not surprisingly, the sections on the Revol• ution and the War of 1812, the Civil War and 100 The Northern Mariner

World War II are the largest. Non-American tool: though not the final word, it is an excel• works do creep into these sections, but they lent place to start. tend to be familiar stalwarts. Canadians will find the late Admiral H.F. Pullen's The Shan• Marc Milner non and the Chesapeake, published in 1970, Fredericton, New Brunswick in the War of 1812 section. Yet it seems that those who have toiled on the War of 1812 on Spencer C. Tucker. The Jeffersonian Gunboat this side of the border since 1970 have done Navy. Columbia: University of South Carolina so in obscurity. So, too, have historians of Press, 1993. xv + 265 pp., figures, tables, twentieth century naval history. This is par• maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. ticularly noticeable in the World War II US $39.95, cloth; ISBN 0-87249-849-2. Dis• Atlantic section, an area in which recent tributed in Canada by Scholarly Book Ser• Canadian publishing has added greatly to our vices, Toronto, ON. understanding of a common campaign: there is, after all, an Atlantic coastline north of In this interesting and comprehensive work, Maine. This is, perhaps, more by way of Professor Spencer Tucker offers the first observation than criticism: all collections detailed examination of the infamous gunboat involve choice, and the focus here is evident. navy constructed by the United States during A rather more interesting aspect — for the period 1801-1812. In a move that has this reviewer at least — of one section is what often been criticised by "blue water" naval it says about American interest in the Battle historians, the American government built, in of the Atlantic. In a 173-page bibliography, preference to larger ocean-going warships, the Atlantic section runs to just short of two some one hundred and seventy small gun• pages, and much of that could be described as boats, each equipped with one or two large- "filler." In addition to various British and calibre long guns, to guard the coastal and German monographs, the section lists Carlo interior waters of the United States. D'Este's three excellent campaign histories of Tucker delineates the political origins of Sicily, Anzio and Normandy. These have the Jeffersonian gunboat programmes, pro• much to say about the nature of amphibious vides an analysis and discussion of the con• warfare, but they could hardly be counted as struction, equipment and armament of this naval histories. In the end only four (Abbazia, early nineteenth-century "mosquito fleet," and Gannon, Gibson and Waters) of the twenty- records its service during the War of 1812. one titles listed in this section actually deal He notes that gunboats were not new craft in with the US Navy in the Atlantic war. S.E. American service. The United States had in Morison's two volumes on the Atlantic from fact employed them since the Revolutionary his larger study of the US Navy during the War. Indeed, in North America, both France war are, it is true, listed under general works and Great Britain made frequent use of this on World War II. But the poverty of that type of warship during the colonial struggles section speaks volumes for the American of the early and middle eighteenth century. neglect of their Atlantic war. The Pacific Tucker discusses both the positive and nega• section, in contrast, runs to eight pages and is tive aspects of the gunboat policy and attri• filled with substantive monographs. butes the programme to Jefferson's awareness No doubt scholars in other fields will find that the young republic was unwilling to points of contention and interest in the selec• support a stronger, ocean-going navy. tions and strengths evident here, but such is The excellent technical discussion of the fate of any bibliography. They are both these "wretched" little craft is enhanced by references and documents in themselves. They good illustrations, line drafts and plans of the are also, like this one, a very useful research vessels' interiors; a separate appendix sum- Book Reviews 101 marizes each vessel's service record. George E. Buker. Blockaders, Refugees, & But this book is far more than a guide for Contrabands: Civil War on Florida's Gulf model ship builders. Tucker discusses in detail Coast, 1861-1865. Tuskaloosa and London: the difficult service on board these small University of Alabama Press, 1993. ix + 236 vessels and the problems this created for pp., photographs, maps, appendices, notes, commanders. Dissatisfaction led to a more bibliography, index. US $29.95, cloth; ISBN frequent rate of desertion from the gunboat 0-8173-0682-X. navy than from larger American warships, and it is an irony that some deserters from the With more scholarly attention currently being Royal Navy who joined the US Navy hoping focused on the naval aspects of the Civil War, to obtain a better quality of life, tried to the forgotten — or neglected — story of the desert back after serving on board these East Gulf Blockading Squadron has now cramped coastal craft. Tucker discusses the become available thanks to George E. Buker careers of those (very few) American naval and the University of Alabama Press. officers who gained distinction in the gunboat Buker, a retired naval officer, author of service and points out that, no matter what histories of Jacksonville and St. Augustine their professional opinion, most of the Ameri• and professor emeritus of history at Jackson• can naval commanders who gained promi• ville University, has carefully examined the nence during the War of 1812 experienced at record of the Squadron, assigned to the rela• least one stretch in the gunboat navy. tively uninhabited Florida coast from St. Tucker provides a yeoman service for stu• Andrew Bay on the west to Cape Florida on dents of the War of 1812, for he devotes six the east, concluding it was "the most chapters to the service of the gunboat navy neglected of the blockade squadrons by the during that war — one for each major theatre. federal government." Nevertheless, he argues, Naval historians of that conflict — notably while engaging in no major actions, it per• William James, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and formed stellar service for the Union and Theodore Roosevelt — usually overlooked or became a significant thorn in the side of the gave short shrift to the doings of these small Confederate war effort. vessels. Jefferson's little warships served The Florida Gulf Coast area harboured a everywhere during the war, from Lake sizeable number of Southern refugees from Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico, and it is Confederate policies (especially disaffected Tucker's fundamental conclusion that, with conscripts), Union sympathizers (or at least the exception of the Gulf, they were too small non-sympathizers with the Confederacy), to be effective. deserters and contrabands (runaway slaves) Based on hitherto unexamined primary who made contact with and received aid from sources, particularly from the National the Union blockaders. As a result, anti-Con• Archives, The Jeffersonian Gunboat Navy is federate guerrilla forces were formed; valu• a work of first-class scholarship that will able salt works were put out of commission; appeal to many American and Canadian and south Florida cattle herds were denied to readers — from those interested in the con• the Confederates, who had become hard struction of small sailing warships to aca• pressed for beef after the Federals seized demic historians. It is written in a clear style control of the Mississippi in 1863 and choked that is, thankfully, largely free of jargon, and off the South's supply of western beef cattle. it advances our knowledge of an overlooked Finally, naval crews, the regular U.S. chapter in the naval history of this continent. Second Florida Cavalry, and the Second Infantry Regiment, United Colored Troops Donald E. Graves were formed from the myriad peoples shep• Ottawa, Ontario herded by the East Gulf Blockading Squad- 102 The Northern Mariner

ron. Florida thus moved from irregular resis• annual would be devoted to specific topics. tance to outright civil war within its borders, However, most readers who responded to this a brush fire on the western Florida frontier trial balloon objected to the proposed new which the Confederate military could neither format, and he has wisely decided to retain its contain nor extinguish. traditional format for now. Buker has approached his multifarious The twelve feature articles in this vol• subject beginning with the formation of the ume's first section cover topics and ship types naval blockade and moving through the East as diverse as sailing ships and nuclear sub• Gulf Blockading Squadron's transformation marines, radar to bizarre proposals for the into an important factor in sustaining anti- deployment of aircraft at sea. Ten of the Confederate resistance in Florida, pausing contributors should be familiar to most of us, along the way for more specialized chapter but even the two newcomers, David Miller descriptions of notable persons and events in and Peter Wright, are established authors and the story. He concludes his study with a com• researchers. As usual Gardiner's editorial parison of the military situation on the state's manages to tie most of the articles together, two coasts, pointing out that the South Atlan• noting that we tend to neglect the dozens of tic Blockading Squadron missed a golden impractical ideas and the few good ones in opportunity to inflict damage on the Confed• favour of the innovations which were actually erate cause as their East Gulf compatriots adopted. He also reminds us that historical managed to do. events often cast very long shadows, noting Buker's appendices of extant muster rolls that one of the chief reasons that the Royal and other personnel listings contain valuable Navy still eschews the use of aluminum in its (if necessarily incomplete) information, and warships stems from its 1940 investigation of his bibliography will serve as a handy guide the wreck of the Admiral Graf Spee. for stadents wishing to pursue the subject of All twelve articles are finely crafted, the East Gulf Blockading Squadron further. topical and informative. Each is complement• The only notable weakness of the book is that ed by well-chosen illustrations, maps, tables, some of the place references in the text are line drawings, and usually by photographs. not on the accompanying maps. For a non- About the only technical criticism that can be Floridian this represents an annoying problem. voiced is that the scale of the drawings is not This book deserves a place in every always clearly indicated. The scope and naval, maritime and Civil War collection. breadth of material covered in this volume is very impressive, ranging from Andrew Lam• James M. Morris bert's look at the building of the Dalhousie in Newport News, Virginia India during the 1850s through to the building and early retirement of the US Navy's nuclear Robert Gardiner (ed.). Warship 1993. London: submarine Triton. For the most part, with the Conway Maritime Press, 1993. 256 pp., pho• glaring exception of Wright's assertion that tographs, figures, tables, notes & sources with the German armoured ships — or pocket- each chapter, index. £25, cloth; ISBN 0- battleships — were designed after Hitler's 85177-624-8. 1933 "seizure of power," they are remarkably error-free. In the editorial of the 1992 edition of this Most of the essays offer unique perspec• popular naval annual, Robert Gardiner tives on their subjects, such as the British 343 informed readers that a major format change mm (13.5 inch) armed dreadnoughts, the might be in the offing for the 1993 edition. French contre-torpilleurs of 1922, and Japan• Instead of its usual eclectic assortment of ese A/A destroyers of World War II. Two articles, he hinted that each issue of this articles discuss British "R" submarines of Book Reviews 103

1917, and the Japanese midget submarines of C.I. Hamilton. Anglo-French Naval Rivalry World War II. Layman and McLaughlin 1840-1870. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. examines some of the more bizarre methods xiii + 359 pp., appendix of tables, select for the launching and recovery of aircraft bibliography, index. $90, cloth; ISBN 0-19- from ships proposed in our century. D.K. 820261-X. Brown offers a very critical look at the Royal Navy's failure to pursue some of the techno• This ambitious book is about the naval rival• logical advances made during World War I. ries of the great powers who fought a war in The US Navy's New Ironsides is the subject alliance in the middle of the selected frame of of a very detailed essay. The career of the reference. It has material on strategy, build• Kriegsmarine's Admiral Scheer is covered in ing, personnel, foreign policy and, above all, another, though much less original, article. the challenges of a changing technological There is also an essay which discusses the age. It has some great merits. The amount of efforts of British Naval Intelligence to material on building policies, personnel and uncover the secrets of German naval radar by actual ship construction is impressive. Indeed, a thorough investigation of the wreck of the anyone wanting to write on almost any aspect Admiral GrafSpee in 1940. of Anglo-French building programmes in the The first part of the Review Section is selected period will henceforth need to consult devoted to Warship Notes; its contents are as this book. The way that the French and Brit• diverse as the those of the main text. The first ish acted and reacted on each other in naval of its five entries discusses the 2750 IHP affairs is set out in some detail and at various engines which powered World War II cor• levels. The research in archives, relevant liter• vettes. The second note is by far the most ature and in private papers is extensive. Thus thought provoking, because it details the the volume has real value in the sense that it voyage and cargo of one of the last German traverses all the sea lanes of naval historical U-boats to depart from the almost defeated exploration and has added a few shoals to Third Reich. Its cargo included various light up the comprehensive chart. Hamilton is metals, drugs, new German military equip• thoughtful about his material; almost rumi- ment and ten cases of uranium oxide U-235! natory. The exposition is very valuable where The next one discusses the co-relation it purports to evaluate Admiralty and Ministre between seakeeping and added weight, while de Marine perceptions of where they stood on the fourth outlines the career of a RN officer. the scale of comparative practical efficiency. The last is a photographic essay on the par• It is matériel history applied with a careful ticipants of the recent Battle of the Atlantic hand to a matériel age. Diligence in this Review. The last two parts of this section matter shines out of every page. consist of reviews of key books published on But every page is costly — the price is naval history within the year, and naval one only libraries and reviewers can afford. developments of 1993. Then there is the problem of focusing the In short, Warship 1993 offers something argument. What purports to contain the raison for almost every taste, and deserves to be d'être, chapter four, is sandwiched between looked at by anyone with an interest in vir• discursions on 'Diplomacy' and 'Personnel.' tually every facet of naval history. Gardiner This is worth a mention because what might has once again presented us with a work be called the 'impulsive forces' of these worthy of exploration, and he has whetted our navies needs to be set out much more clearly. appetite for the 1994 edition. The Royal Navy was an Imperial Navy with world-wide responsibilities. The French navy, Peter K.H. Mispelkamp on the other hand, had world reach without Pointe Claire, Québec world stance. Hamilton refers to such writers 104 The Northern Mariner as Gerald Graham, Brian Tunstall, James in helpful information, but its message is Phinney Baxter, Theodore Ropp and even diminished because the selected Anglo-French John Charles Ready Colomb without allowing pattern does not stand the strain of compari• it to transpire that he understands their son to explain British building policies. approaches to Imperial naval problems. For instance there was a whole problem because Donald M. Schurman of the need for coal, the location of coal Kingston, Ontario stocks and the changing efficiency of boilers. Naval Imperialism had matériel ramifications. Michael Epkenhans. Die wilhelminische Flott- These were matters not crucial for French enrustung 1908-1914; Weltmachtstreben, military planners. In other words the French industrieller Fortschritt, soziale Integration. treated their navy almost as another army. Munchen: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1991. xi + The British never had that luxury, if luxury it 488 pp., bibliography, tables, figures, index. was. The Royal Navy always viewed theory DM 88, cloth; ISBN 3-486-55880-3. with suspicion because its purposes have so often been at variance with each other. Thus, In my review of Gary E. Weir's Building the condemned by fate to over-arching, often in• Kaiser's Navy: the Imperial Naval Office and compatible planning, the Service has been German Industry in the von Tirpitz Era, 1890- disproportionately vulnerable to attacks 1919 (TNM/LMN, October 1992), I mentioned (invasion scares). a number of standard works on the Tirpitz era One of the most interesting characteristics whose ranks I regarded Weir as having joined. of the period chosen by Hamilton for explana• I had the temerity to suggest by way of intro• tion is the fact that French land superiority duction: "These and other major stadies pro• was generally assumed, and British defensive vide such daunting variety and detail that one stance clear. Neither the devastating nature of might incline to the view that the 'Kaiser's the Prussian articulated moloch nor the push Navy' has been done. Such is not the case." to cover the map with the deep colours of Well, such is again not the case. Michael Ep• European nations in what became known as kenhans takes a zoom-lens to a crucial six- imperialism had been revealed. Britain was year period within Weir's purview and brings not seen to be seriously challenged. Was it an intense intellectual rigour to bear on his not the nature of this pre-scramble period of themes. Weir cannot be faulted for not having relative calm that made it possible for the known Epkenhans' book, for the dynamics of Admiralty Board to view disjointed Anglo- publication, advertising and distribution cause French rivalries with some equanimity? This researchers (and reviewers) considerable whole scenario whereby France rendered delay. In any event these are two quite differ• British naval planners nervous seems to want ent and complementary studies. some of the salty pragmatism of the quarter Epkenhans analyses the crucial issue of deck and the Admiralty board room. the build-up of Wilhelmine Germany's naval When a good deal of information is armaments during the years 1906-1914. He offered the reader it seems to demand numeri• investigates the complex interrelationships and cal schemes and methods. Yet it is the quali• tensions between the often conflicting claims tative rather than the quantitative approach of internal power politics and external rela• that seems to be the casualty here. Still, it tions, between the Imperial Naval Office and may be that the comparative method itself has German shipbuilders, between parliament and something to answer for: French and British populace, and between the demands of conti• navies may not look much like apples and nental and naval strategy. Linking all these oranges, but perhaps they are just as resistant with Machiavellian intensity is Admiral von to the comparative method. This book is rich Tirpitz, whose single-minded, sometimes Book Reviews 105 blinkered, pursuit of maritime prestige and really need to know will likely persevere. His Weltpolitik for Germany brought Europe to lapses into Professorendeutsch frequently take the edge of war. Meticulously researched and the appetite away. And that is a shame, for minutely argued, this illuminating revised the book constitutes a major building-block in doctoral dissertation offers a wealth of impor• our understanding of the period. It is a wel• tant detail. Master of his field, and especially come reference work; the index and bibliogra• noteworthy for his command of previously phy are very good. Photographs would have unknown industrial archival sources, the enhanced its appeal. The publisher has pro• author has broken entirely new ground. duced a handsome volume: quality paper, A well-balanced study, it sheds light on attractive print, well-bound and sturdy. a number of critical issues. Not the least of these are the propensity of citizens to regard Michael L. Hadley armaments as the expression of national pride, Victoria, British Columbia identity and purpose (what he calls Ausriis- tungsnationalismus), and the firmly held Jan S. Breemer. The Burden of Trafalgar: popular belief of the day that Germany had to Decisive Battle and Naval Strategic Expecta• be defended against foreign aggressors. When tions on the Eve of the First World War. linked with the dependency of shipbuilders Newport, RI: Naval War College Press, 1993; upon naval contracts, with a tendency to Newport Paper #6. vi + 45 pp., notes. Paper; absolutize the state, and with what Epkenhans available on request from: The Dean of Naval sees as the characteristically German "political Warfare Studies (Code 3), Naval War Col• will to encourage and support a viable private lege, 686 Cushing Road, Newport, RI 02841- armaments industry," (p. 414) it all made for 1207, USA. a volatile mix. Epkenhans tenaciously pursues the interweavings of all his themes. His study The overall theme of this brief study is that ultimately reveals the outbreak of war in 1914 the distinction between public posture ("decla• as the result of momentous developments trig• ratory strategy") and war planning becomes gered by Germany's aggressive and offense- confused in practice. The former is what is oriented fleet building policies of 1897-98. most discussed and becomes most likely to This is hardly a surprise. But in the positi- assume a reality that was never intended. This vistic tradition of historiography, his uncom• position is illustrated by examining "the promising precision in documenting and ana• legacy of Trafalgar" which, Jan Breemer lysing the deeply-layered stages in the march believes, burdened both the British and Ger• of the military-industrial complex leaves no man navies before and during World War I. room for doubt. Thus he definitively lays to In Britain, the idea was pervasive that rest a theory still held in some circles that command of the sea would be gained by the Germany's participation in the naval arms victorious big battle. Naval planning became race was a defensive enterprise. Germany's dominated by the Nelsonian problem, how to responsibility for the root cause of the war, bring the enemy fleet to action. Admiralty what Germans call the Ur-Katastrophe, is war plans between 1905 and 1912 posited a considerable. Epkenhans avoids polemic, for blockade of the German coast aimed at bring• his sole aim is understanding and explanation. ing a frustrated High Sea Fleet out of port to Earnest to a fault, Epkenhans makes no seek battle. A second Trafalgar would result concessions to general readers who might be in the annihilation of the enemy and the con• attracted by his fascinating theme. This is a sequent command of the sea by the Royal scholarly work for scholars; only fluent Navy. Two consequences of this concept was readers of German will manage the text with that navies were judged by numbers of battle• any comfort, and only those among them who ships, which, in turn, led to the great Anglo- 106 The Northern Mariner

German naval arms race and inattention to Paul Kemp. Convoy Protection: The Defence more mundane matters like the protection of of Seaborne Trade. London: Arms & Armour merchant shipping and the introduction of a Press, 1993. 124 pp., tables, photographs, convoy system. This confirms what Arthur bibliography, index. Cdn $34.95, US $24.95, Marder said years ago, that the Royal Navy cloth; ISBN 1-85409-037-2. Distributed in the before World War I was "hypnotised by its USA by Sterling Publishing, New York NY. past." Hence, when the war came in 1914, the navy, and the nation at large, remained wed• When the merchantman Glitra was sunk by ded to the eighteenth-century idea, perpetuated U-17 on 20 October, 1914, it signalled the by the American naval historian and theorist start of Germany's unrestricted submarine Alfred Thayer Mahan, that the essence of nav• attacks on shipping. By 1916, as many as fifty al warfare was the battle, two fleets of capital British merchant ships were being sunk every ships battering each other to death. The incon• week, a grim factor that came closest to clusive Battle of Jutland would destroy the defeating Britain in World War I. Then-First myth of the Royal Navy's invincibility, part Sea Lord Winston Churchill later admitted of the Trafalgar legend. that the only thing "that really frightened me Breemer also points out that big fleet in the war was the U-Boat peril." engagements do not guarantee the safety of And no wonder, for as Paul Kemp docu• commerce. Trafalgar spurred Napoleon's navy ments in Convoy Protection, Britain at the to turn to cruiser warfare, just as the bottling time imported 80 per cent of wheat, 50 per up of the German fleet after Jutland made un• cent of meat, and 100 percent of oil supplies. restricted U-boat warfare "the only option" for Yet Royal Navy strategists, obsessed with the the German navy, (p.27) We might add that tradition of offensive tactics, were slow to between them, Jutland and the U-boat should take effective ship protection measures. As• have put an end to the idea of command of tounding as it now seems, over two years of the sea decided by a big battle. Yet the battle slaughter at sea passed before re-introduction fleet continued to dominate naval thinking of a centuries-old method — convoys — began between the wars to the detriment of the to save ships, and eventually defeated the U- building of convoy escort vessels, submarines boats. This apparent reluctance to introduce and aircraft carriers. It took the near-disasters convoys to protect maritime trade is all the of 1941-42 in the North Atlantic and the Far more surprising, considering a previous suc• East to bring about a reconciliation of strat• cess record. The efficacy of convoys during egy, tactics and modem weapons technology. the American and French Revolutionary wars This essay is based upon wide-reading in led to the Compulsory Convoy Act of 1798 secondary and contemporary literature. which empowered the Admiralty to enforce Whether by oversight or intention, official the convoy method on all ocean-going ships. sources have been disregarded. Surprisingly, Regrettably, the Act was repealed in 1872, a the author does not mention the committee set costly example of forgetting the lessons of up by the Admiralty in April 1912 "to con• history. sider the tactics employed by Nelson at the Kemp concentrates his study on the two Battle of Trafalgar" (Cd. 7120, 1913). world wars. To present the Royal Navy's long Although it contains nothing new, Breemer's voyage towards the convoy system, he first work provides a handy summary and intro• provides a concise yet detailed account of the duction for the uninitiated to a topic that German U-boat's evolution and employment. never seems to go away. British naval philosophy then seemed con• vinced that merchant ships were best protected Gerald Jordan by attacking U-boats directly, while leaving Toronto, Ontario the intended victims pretty much to their own Book Reviews 107

devices. We learn of an array of new anti• on both sides during these two crucial sea-war submarine measures, weapons, and tactics: net campaigns. One noticeable gap perhaps, is barrages, minefields, depth-charges, faster lack of any examination of the responses or destroyer, aircraft, and "Q" ship decoys. contributions of the merchant shipping indus• However, for all the expense and valour of try itself. Kemp presents the issue entirely these offensive efforts, only a total of 48 U- from the naval perspective. Nevertheless, his boats had been sunk by the end of January book offers thoughtful historical indications, 1917. Far more German submarines would be how even the most dazzling advances in com• sunk after introduction of defensive convoys bat technology may still not prevail if the in 1917. (Some indication of the prevailing basics of convoy protection are neglected. conservatism then among professional officers elsewhere as well was the initial reluctance of Sidney Allinson the US Navy to adopt convoy tactics, despite Victoria, British Columbia proven effectiveness.) In the end, counter- measures by naval escorting vessels became Gilbert A.H. Gordon. British Seapower and so effective that a total of sixty-nine U-boats Procurement Between the Wars: A Reapprais• were sunk during 1918. al of Rearmament. London: Macmillan, 1988 Twenty years later, Japan's failure to and Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, learn from this led eventually to the collapse 1993. ix + 321 pp., bibliography, index, of its economy in World War II, following appendices. £29.50, US $24.95, cloth; ISBN the destruction of its entire merchant fleet by 0-87021-894-8. American submarines. There has been no costlier and complete example of how vul• There has long been a popular impression that nerable unprotected and scattered merchant "England slept" in the 1930s whilst the Axis ships really are to a well-equipped and ruth• powers prepared for war. This book sheds less enemy. Within weeks after Pearl Harbor, welcome new light on naval rearmament. It USN submarines were hunting Japanese ships, contends that in fact about as much was though initial successes would have been achieved as was possible given limitations in more impressive but for the persistent failure skilled manpower and armour plate and ord• of torpedo detonators. Once this technical nance production capabilities. Gilbert Gordon fault was corrected, American boats began to asserts that allocating more resources to sink an average of fifty Japanese cargo vessels rearmament would have seriously damaged a month — a "turkey shoot." Japan's reaction Britain's trading ability and crippled her was again an aggressive single-minded emph• economic staying power, which in itself had asis on trying to tackle the undersea deterrent value. marauders directly while ignoring the need to Gordon bases his arguments on extensive protect commerce ships. The cost was empty research and interviews in 1979-80 with offi• wharfs in every Japanese port on V-J Day. cers who had served in the Admiralty in the There seems something special about the '30s. He offers many interesting insights and submarine service of any nation, which lures reminders of the vital role of industrial and a very special quality of sailor. Kemp des• economic factors in defence policies. The cribes several such spirited individuals in the original impetus to rearm came in 1932, after US Navy, who fought a determined enemy Japan's aggression in Manchuria and China. and violent seas, many of them paying with Warship building and naval armaments capa• their lives for the eventual total destruction of bilities nurtured by the pre-war competition Japan's seaborne trade. with Imperial Germany and sustained between Good accompanying photographs portray 1914 and 1918 had been run down in the commanders, equipment, and actual conditions years following the Armistice. By the mid- 108 The Northern Mariner

'30s a lack of skilled workmen inhibited the copied in Canada. For example, schemes to labour-intensive process of renewing the fleet. provide funds to shipbuilders were very The building of twenty 8,000-ton cargo ships similar to the Canadian government's wartime was estimated to require the same amount of capital assistance programme that helped to labour as a single 8,000-ton cruiser. Surpris• achieve such a prodigious expansion of ship• ingly, the peak year for orders of warship building capacity in this country. tonnage was 1937, not later. A third of the British Seapower and Procurement wartime battleships, half of the cruisers and Between the Wars convincingly demonstrates over half of the fleet carriers were produced that the Admiralty pursued consistent and between 1936 and the outbreak of war. effective plans in expanding the naval indus• Gordon's focus, however, is on the rela• trial base and achieved its aims despite oppo• tionship between industrial capacity and sea- sition. The author illuminates how policies power rather than on specific programmes. He were formulated within the government, and describes how the government actively assis• the interplay between personalities in this ted naval contractors and how capacity was process. While the overall effect is arguably increased in peacetime. This happened against too much an uncritical apologia for govern• a backdrop of national economic strain and a ment policies, G.A.H. Gordon provides a use• sort of war-weary public and media amnesia ful corrective to earlier histories which about the growing danger that another conflict ignored the factors inhibiting rearmament. would occur. (62 per cent of the men polled This is a rewarding and important book. late in 1937 said that they would not volun• teer in another war.) Jan Drent There are many threads in this book, Victoria, British Columbia including the government's structures for formulating policy and controlling expen• V.E. Tarrant. King George V Class Battle• ditures, naval industries, procurement deci• ships. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1991. sions, and key personalities. They are not 371 pp., figures, maps, photographs, appendix, always easy to follow and context is occa• bibliography, index. £25, cloth; ISBN 1- sionally omitted. There are several case his• 85409-026-7. tories of factories and firms that received assistance. An overall survey of results, or This is the life history of the five King how production from these sources fitted into George V class battleships which served in the total output, is not provided in all cases. The Royal Navy during World War II — ships reader is also expected to be familiar with familiar to many a Canadian matelot (among why specific classes of ships were significant. many others, Prince of Wales' radar officer I found the book easier to understand when when sunk was a sub-lieutenant of the Royal read as a companion piece to S.W. RoskilPs Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve). Naval Policy Between the Wars (Collins, 1968 The KGVs were both the most modem and 1976). In fact, Captain Roskill was RN capital ships in service during the war and among those interviewed by Gordon. the least impressive of the many battleships This book is also interesting from a laid down by the combatant powers. Naval Canadian perspective. The narrative helps us treaty restrictions established the limits: to understand the scale of British rearmament 35,000 tons (standard) displacement, 16" in the latter years of the decade when action maximum gun calibre. The author provides a was being urged on the Dominions. There are good general account in his opening chapter several accounts of initiatives both in the of the way in which the competing factors of planning of defence and in providing practical armament, protection and speed had to be bal• support to industry which were eventually anced to produce a viable ship that fell within Book Reviews 109

these limitations. Some of the design alterna• ships — thereby giving readers a bit of a feel tives are briefly summarised (though plans for life in the "big ship" Royal Navy, right and tables comparing the details are noticeab• down to the New Year's Day menu in Duke ly absent), followed by a description of the of York after North Cape. ships' technical characteristics. The book is generously illustrated with A battleship's raison d'être is her big photographs — details of life on board, as well guns — the KGVs were armed with 14" guns, as the ships in their various wartime guises. not the 15" or 16" guns of their peers. Tarrant Many of the photographs have not been fre• attributes this to the more balanced design quently published. Unfortunately, the captions dictated by the treaty displacement. However, often simply repeat text found elsewhere in he ignores the diplomatic events of 1935 and the book, and one very interesting shot of 1936, when it looked as if the London Treaty Duke of York wearing battle ensigns (probably would limit the calibre to a maximum of 14". the entry of the BPF into Tokyo Bay at the In a rush, the Royal Navy committed itself to end of the war) has no caption at all. There this size gun. When Italy and Japan failed to are a few plans of the ships as completed, and ratify the treaty, the limit reverted to 16". The a good view of the internals of the class, United States used the delay to introduce the using Prince of Wales as an example. The larger weapon with the North Carolina class; maps of the various actions are quite good England could not, and so these ships were and easy to follow. given their defining (to some, damning) char• The dust jacket describes the book as "an acteristics. The KGVs managed ten guns exhaustive study of the main British battle• instead of the more usual eight or nine, but ships of the last war." This is not so. While it the complexities inherent in the quadruple 14" is a very good operational history of the turrets plagued the ships throughout their class, technical details are lacking: additions careers. Tarrant makes much of this in his and alterations are listed in the text, without book, stressing that these turrets could have being illustrated (there was a tremendous evo• been made to work correctly had the usual lution in anti-aircraft armament and control workups been done during peacetime and not during their lives); there are no detailed at sea during the war. descriptions of their construction and structure The next nine chapters take us through a — especially the weight-saving means taken good summary of the wartime years, follow• during building; there could be many more ing the stories of the five battleships. All the detailed plans and tables. In particular, this major actions in which the ships participated reviewer missed a description of the way are there in some detail: not just the battles of these ships influenced the subsequent Lion North Cape and the Denmark Straits, but and Vanguard class battleships — the 1944 various sorties against the Tirpitz, Operations design of Lion was greatly affected by the "Torch" and "Husky," their service with the wartime experiences of the KGVs. The ships' British Pacific Fleet (BPF), and numerous postwar lives are barely mentioned. They others. The information is comprehensive, and were not entirely idle between 1945 and 1949, includes a list of the Japanese squadrons when they were laid up in reserve. The deci• involved in the attack on Force Z. Outside of sions that led to their scrapping and the public a few minor typos, the only real error this controversy that attended it in the late 1950s reviewer noted concerns Duke of York during are totally absent. her duel with Scharnhorst. Tarrant has her Dreadnought specialists are not likely to turning to port at 1900, when the plot clearly find anything new in this book. However, shows her turning to starboard. Throughout, readers with more general interests in the the book is enlivened with quotations and World War II Royal Navy will find it worthy anecdotes from the men who served in the of consideration, if only because of the thor- 110 The Northern Mariner

ough yet readable accounts of the major regards the cessation of bombing in May 1941 actions. The King George V class were far as a major German blunder. After a brief from being the best battleships afloat, but they summary of some quite extensive damage in did make an important contribution to the the winter of 1940, he passes on to cover in winning of the war at sea. This book is a fine infinite detail the week of 1-8 May, day by testimonial to that fact. day, terrible night by night. One is constantly amazed at the fortitude of Fire Watchers and William Schleihauf fire-fighting parties, the police and soldiers Pierrefonds, Québec sent to help, operating as bombs and incendi• aries kept falling, coping with huge dock-side John Hughes. Port in a Storm: The Air warehouses on fire, city centre buildings Attacks on Liverpool and its Shipping in the collapsing, no communications facilities work• Second World War. Liverpool: National ing. In fact, readers soon realise that the Museums & Galleries on Merseyside, 1993. x bombs' initial destruction contributed the + 181 pp., maps, photographs, tables, appen• smaller part of the resultant damage. Broken dices, notes, index. £11.95, paper; ISBN 0- fire mains, roads blocked by debris, an inabil• 9516129-6-4. ity of those in command to direct incoming support fire pumps to the most needy sites, Unless one is thoroughly familiar with Liver• the huge fires, often fed by broken gas mains, pool and its suburbs, this disturbing book spreading from one building to others nearby, should be read like Tolstoy's War and Peace. the need to evacuate the now-homeless, all It is not vital to the tale to know the location constituted the major part of the problem. of Duke Street or Sandown Half-tide Dock. When the raids ended — and they were all The story of the early wartime Luftwaffe night attacks lasting not more than four hours raids on Merseyside — Liverpool and Bootle — the days were just as bad. Rail lines to clear to the east, Birkenhead on the west bank — the docks of endangered cargoes, and even to makes shocking, heart-rending reading. Yet bring in workers, were demolished. Records one is often heartened by the self sacrifice, of firms were destroyed (and incidentally bravery and common sense of that elusive made it difficult for Hughes to piece together character, "the average man," in the face of accurate details of much of the damage and quite unanticipated destruction. casualties), and there were arguments about Liverpool suffered major air raids on only outside interference. Salvage vessels were a few occasions, each extending over several sunk, and merchantmen settled to the bottom days, starting first in August 1940, a heavier in their docks, most of which could only be one with considerable damage in December, reached through tidal lock gates, which them• and then their major trial over a week's span selves were often damaged as well. Vessels in May, 1941. Thereafter raids were only caught fire from blazing sheds alongside. occasional, by few aircraft, and the 1944 Hughes takes all the destruction casually, flying bombs could not reach the city. putting the whole in a macabre perspective: Merseyside was a major port for import "Only five were killed when this large ware• and export of every conceivable class of house was demolished." Small touches of goods. There were, for instance, 231 ocean• humour relieve the constant story of fire going ships in port at the beginning of the fighters facing hopeless conflagrations with May raids. As well, it was headquarters for only stirrup pumps or one hose connected to the Navy's Western Approaches command a salt water main that then failed due to and many of its warships. Its closure would ruptures caused by bombs elsewhere. In one have been a disaster, for all other ports were delightful story, two cows, blown out of their already stretched to the limit. Hughes astutely stable in a city dairy at night, were then run Book Reviews 111

into by a bicycling policeman! This is offset Henri Petain's unresisting regime, the latter by the huge explosion of the 7,600 ton ship glowering at the impotent French administra• Malakand, loaded with munitions, in Huskis- tors in Hanoi, Indochina steadily slipped into son Dock, wrecking it to the extent that the the character of a vassal state of Japan. section was filled in with rubble afterwards to Yet, despite this quasi-orphaned status serve as a storage yard. and even as Japanese economic, military and About 4,000 were killed in these raids diplomatic incursions eroded French authority, which, for the size of the city, was the French Asiatic fleet, older, outnumbered proportionately greater than in London. This and outgunned, was able to deliver a signifi• book serves as both a memorial to a horren• cant if ultimately futile blow against the dous week, and as a cautionary tale for any• hitch-hiking aggression of Japan's sycophant, one who might be in some way responsible Thailand, in 1941 and to redeem in the epic for another similar event. battle of Koi-Chang a brief moment of honour The book itself contains few errors, that stood in stark contrast to the splendid though one was substantial. The excellent and battlefleet which rode at anchor in a state of detailed reference notes run out at 365, but "demobilization" in a half dozen ports around there are 395 in the text! On the other hand, the world. the Appendices on bomb loads, percentage For too long, efforts to examine the role hits on the intended target cities, and on of the French Navy in Indochina during both casualties are excellent. Certainly, Hughes the war years and the post-war years of the provides us with a fascinating, microscopic Vietnamese war of national liberation have view, illustrated with fifty-two large photos been thwarted by limited access to appropriate and fifteen detailed maps. Much more can be archival collections. With the exception of the learned from the text than I have been able to quality work of Jacques Mordal, whose book cover in this review. Marine Indochine drew on official documents, no collection of published documents existed Fraser M. McKee allowing for such a study. With the lifting of Markdale, Ontario most restrictions on World War II archives, the Service historique de la Marine reprinted Michel Jacques (éd.). La Marine française en the most significant collections currently Indochine de 1939 à 1955. 5 vols; Vincennes, available for one to examine the naval side of France: Service historique de la Marine, 1993. these tumultuous years in Southeast Asia. I: xi + 255 pp.; II: vii + 391 pp.; Ill: ix + 472 La Marine française en Indochine: 1939- pp.; IV: ix + 412 pp.; V: vii + 414 pp., pho• 1955 is a solid, well-organized and compre• tographs, maps, tables, figures, appendices. hensive narrative of both the war years and FFr 90 (v. I), FFr 100 (v. 2), FFr 110 (v. Ill), what some call the first Indochina war. FFr 110 (v. IV), FFr 110 (v. V), all paper- Arranged in a meticulous chronological bound. fashion, this five-volume set concentrates in selective format on the actions and events in During the years 1939-1945, the French the following distribution: I: September 1939 Asiatic fleet displayed a mixture of dash and — August 1945; II: August 1945 — December stoic reconciliation to the circumstances of 1946; III: January 1947 - December 1949; national defeat and the reality of an omnipres• IV: January 1950 - April 1953; V: April ent Japanese colossus which threatened both 1953 — May 1956. Each volume includes the maintenance of the fleet itself and the excellent narratives on various operations with survival of the colony under its protection. parallel column citations to specific sources or Under the dual intimidation of the Berlin- documents, many high quality maps, tables, Tokyo Axis, the former pressuring Marshal and photographs. An annex to each chapter 112 The Northern Mariner contains full-text reproductions of orders, Al Ross. Anatomy of the Ship: The Escort after-action reports, battle summaries, orders Carrier Gambier Bay. London: Conway Mari• or signals. While there is neither a general time Press, 1993. 112 pp., photographs, index nor particular volume indices, an excel• figures, tables, sources. £20, cloth; ISBN 0- lent table of contents in each volume is of 85177-613-2. great assistance and citation is made to par• ticular sources utilized with a full collation. This addition to the Anatomy of the Ship Among the more captivating treatments series describes a member of the Casablanca- within this set is that detailing the Japanese class escort aircraft carriers of World War II. aggression against Indochina, the Franco-Thai Fifty of these ships were produced in 1943- undeclared war of 1941, the appearance of 44, of which five were lost in action. The Allied warships in Far Eastern waters in 1945, subject of Al Ross's book, the Gambier Bay, the restoration of French sovereignty and the was one of those unlucky five ships. initiation of combat operations by the Far Ross follows the now-standard pattern of Eastern Naval Flotilla in 1946. Throughout other books in this series. There is a brief these columns a precise account is presented introductory text section, containing the of organizational strengths, including com• background of the Casablanca-dass carriers, mands and personnel. Specific ship move• a table of the fifty carriers of this class pro• ments, dispositions, engagements and other duced, and a short service history of the operations are likewise chronicled, as are carrier. This is justified, as Gambier Bay was pertinent activities of commercial shipping. in US Navy service for approximately ten The volumes also distinguish between opera• months — from delivery in December 1943 to tions and compositions of the Far Eastern her sinking by Japanese naval gunfire on 25 naval division and the Indochina units, and October, 1944. The battle report of her cap• narratives include conclusions drawn at the tain describing Gambier Bay's sinking is end of each time period on the effectiveness included in full and provides a very detailed of operations conducted. narrative of the carrier's end. Following the The user of this set will require a fluency battle report, a short but detailed description in French. The set is highly detailed, filled of Gambier Bay's general arrangement, hull with numerous tables of organization, ship structure, machinery, catapult, radar gear, fire postings, activities and a wealth of minor control equipment, searchlights, aircraft, statistics, including aircraft losses for the time armament, ship's boats, and camouflage as period. Given the significance of the Indo• well as notes on sources is included. china conflict in the modem world and Asian Most of the book is devoted to photo• history, any reader should be prepared for an graphs and drawings of the ship. The photo• avalanche of raw data which, on this subject graph section includes depictions of the hull at least, is unequalled except for the original under construction, the finished ship, action files from which these documents are ex• photographs, photographs of sister CVEs and tracted. One would wish for a broader narra• details of the armament, radar antennae, and tive encompassing the entire chronological mast. Most of the photos come from the US horizon of this epoch and this reviewer would National Archives. The detail photos are argue that Jacques Mordal's Marine Indochine helpful — several illustrate Gambier Bay's can serve as a suitable companion if the user camouflage scheme well. They also reveal the is so disposed. vagaries caused by wartime: Gambier Bay's complement of aircraft was relatively small Calvin Hines (approximately eighteen FM-2 Wildcat Nacogdoches, Texas fighters and twelve TBM-1C Avenger torpedo bombers), yet the photos show that the Wild- Book Reviews 113 cats carried more than one colour scheme. American, Australian and Japanese, all scat• The last section provides a full set of tered over a small comer of the Pacific Ocean detailed drawings of the carrier. Virtually — the few square miles between the islands of everything is shown: general arrangements of Tulagi, Savo and Guadalcanal. That stretch of profile, flight deck, hull, transverse sections, water is Iron Bottom Sound. It is the World upper deck, hangar deck, second deck, plat• War II grave to almost fifty ships. form deck, tank top, double bottom, fore and The question is — do we really need any aft details lead the list. Then follow con• more books on sunken ships? The answer to structional details of the draft, plan view, that question is "yes," at least as far as The stem casting, plan view, rudder post, and Lost Ships of Guadalcanal is concerned. This other sections. The next sections are almost book contains a great deal besides sunken staggering in their detail: tower, radar plat• warships. The largest portion of the book is a form, armaments, fittings, stanchions, ladders, well-researched history of the entire Guadal• watertight doors, reels, searchlights, ships' canal campaign, both on land and at sea. This boats, lift rafts, and arresting gear, to name campaign was, after all, a turning point in the only a few. These provide many, many handy Pacific war, a nail-chewing six months for details useful to the ship modeller or maritime those in charge of the operation and a very enthusiast. The drawings of the Wildcat and nasty six months for those who fought. The Avenger are accurate. Scales are noted on narrative portion of the book uses material most drawings. Finally, the ship's camouflage from survivors and uses it with taste — none pattern is shown in the last drawing and may of the "Admiral Smith took another puff of be used in conjunction with the cover illustra• his cigar and ordered his steward to bring tion in colour of the Gambier Bay at sea. another martini..." sort of writing. This book is highly recommended for the The four battles fought in Iron Bottom US Navy enthusiast, and student of World Sound between August and November 1942 War II vessels and aircraft carriers in general. were nasty and vicious, and generally fought It would be especially helpful to a modeller, with cruisers and destroyers. They were also because of the detail contained therein, but fought at night and at close range with little can be enjoyed by a wide range of those margin for error. The Japanese had some interested in maritime topics. advantages — they were fully trained in night fighting, their "long lance" torpedoes were Robert L. Shoop deadly and technologically years ahead of the Colorado Springs, Colorado American weapon. The Americans had radar — though some senior officers failed to use it. Robert D. Ballard, with Rick Archbold. The Air power was another American asset. But Lost Ships of Guadalcanal. Toronto: Vik• there was major failure on both sides. The ing/Madison Press, 1993. 228 pp., photo• authors are understandably critical of the graphs, illustrations, maps, appendix, bibli• leadership. However, Captain Roskill's com• ography, index. $50, cloth; ISBN 0-670- ment that the critical reader should experience 85292-9. the strain of remaining alert for several suc• cessive nights after long and anxious days in Dr. Robert Ballard and his Canadian collabor• the deadening, exhausting heat of the Solo• ator Rick Archbold have again joined modem mon Islands' climate, bears some consider• technology to public curiosity in their con• ation. Among those who died, were two tinuing series of books for nautical necro- American admirals and one Japanese admiral. philes. This time, the folks that brought you In August 1992, fifty years after the the Titanic and the Bismarck, lying shattered events described in the book, a naval memor• on the ocean floor, bring you twelve warships, ial was unveiled on Guadalcanal. This brought 114 The Northern Mariner a number of survivors, American, Australian ahead some fifty years he goes over the same and Japanese to the island. The young men of ground again when, as Admiral Second-in- nineteen and twenty who fought the war were Command of the Western Fleet, he returned now elderly gentlemen in their late 60s or to Bermuda in his flagship HMS Tiger. This early 70s. For many, it was a first meeting fascinating picture of showing the flag in with the former enemy, even as it brought peacetime is told with a delicate touch, an eye back memories suppressed during the inter• for detail evoking in the old sailors amongst vening years. It also caused The Lost Ships of us a nostalgic sense of déjà vu. Guadalcanal to be more that another book of There follow chapters on life at the Royal sunken ships. The exposure of these long-ago Naval College, Dartmouth, in the late 1920s sailors to the authors somehow helped bridge and in the gunrooms of the fleet in the 1930s; the gap between those who know war from both would be enlightening to a social histor• what they've read and those who know war ian, and both would probably frighten a pres• from having fought. ent-day adolescent contemplating a service The book is lavishly illustrated with over career. Thanks to changing attitudes and 300 photographs, paintings and maps. Espec• technology as well as to people like Hayes ially notable are wartime water colours by the himself, however, the life of the subordinate late Commander Dwight Shepler, a US Navy officer today bears little resemblance to that war artist. Ken Marschall's underwater illus• which Hayes' generation experienced. The trations are sufficiently ominous, especially book is thus not just a recapitulation of where the pull-out illustrations of HMAS Canberra he went and what he did. The theme is and USS Quincy. Photographs, 1940s and change — in society, in technology and in the 1990s, abound. All in all, this is an interesting navy — which the author experienced through• book to read, a worthwhile one to own. out his four decades of service. Occasional sub-themes also emerge. The David Fry real thrust of the early chapters, for example, Toronto, Ontario is in their demonstration of the practical, hands-on approach to the training of naval John Hayes. Face the Music: A Sailor's Story. officers in that period. Classroom instruction Durham: Pentland Press, 1991. xvi + 239 pp., was supplemented by practical experience as photographs. £14.95, cloth; ISBN 1-872795- a midshipman of the watch at sea and in 05-6. harbour under an experienced officer. One learned to handle boats from a leading hand John Hayes has faced the music all his life. old enough to be one's father, and who, when As a thirteen-year-old candidate for a he felt it necessary to teach his midshipman a cadetship, he denied to a member of the lesson, acted the part of the stem parent interview board that he could play Chopin, without forgetting to address the young though his application had shown that he gentleman as "Sir." It was from men such as could play the piano. And why not? these that Hayes learned not only the art of "Because," he answered, "there are too many the seaman, but the ways of the navy. sharps and flats in it." He thus establishes a Following a period on the America and rapport with his readers which he manages to West Indies Station, Hayes specialized as a retain successfully throughout this account of navigating officer. This was followed by two some forty years service in the Royal Navy. rather uneventful years in HMS Fowey on the The first chapter opens with a description Persian Gulf Patrol. No one was sorry, least of his boyhood and early education at the of all Hayes, when that assignment came to Dockyard School in Bermuda where his father an end and he was appointed second navigator had settled after World War I. Then, leaping and junior Cadet Training Officer in HMS Book Reviews 115

Vindictive. He might have looked forward to British social structure changed remarkably a regular round of training cruises and home during the forty years of his naval service, leave, but that was not to be. War intervened, and the social conditions of the navy changed and Hayes again faced the music: a honey• with it. Britain's role in international affairs moon interrupted by an urgent appointment to changed too, and the navy changed with it. HMS Cairo as Navigating Officer. Military technology changed, and the design Hayes' war was typical of most: long of ships, armament, tactics and the training of periods of crushing boredom and extreme officers and men changed with it. All this is discomfort interspersed with short flashes of reflected in Face the Music, and that is why intense excitement and extreme danger. It this book is an interesting and useful contribu• began in Cairo with convoy duty followed by tion to British naval historiography. an appointment to Repulse, shortly to be engaged in the search for Bismarck. Within C.B. Koester the year Repulse and Prince of Wales were to Kingston, Ontario be the victims of the disastrous encounter with Japanese aircraft in the South China Sea. Stuart E. Soward. Hands to Flying Stations: The two chapters devoted to these events and A Recollective History of Canadian Naval the following chapters dealing with the fall of Aviation, 1945-1954. Victoria, BC: Neptune Singapore make fascinating reading. Although Developments, 1993. xviii + 340 pp., photo• much of their substance has been reported graphs, appendices, bibliography, index. elsewhere, Hayes' contributions are both $39.95 cloth; ISBN 0-9697229-0-7. Distrib• interesting and revealing. uted by UBC Press, Vancouver. Evacuated at the eleventh hour, Hayes eventually made his way home to Liverpool, As its subtitle suggests, Smart Soward's new and there followed three years as Staff Officer book provides an overview of Canadian naval Operations of the First Cruiser Squadron out aviation as seen through the eyes of the of Scapa Flow. It was in this capacity that he participants. This first of a planned two- was involved in the ill-fated convoy PQ17. volume work concentrates on the formative His war ended in the Mediterranean where he years of the Royal Canadian Navy's Air served in a similar capacity ashore in Malta Branch, 1943-1954. Soward relies extensively and afloat in HMS Orion, flagship of the on oral interviews — more than 120 former Fifteenth Cruiser Squadron. aviators and ground crew — and some recently A varied peacetime career followed: staff declassified records to paint a portrait of the appointments, cadet training, carrier service, trials and triumphs of the men who formed promotion to captain in command of frigates Canada's naval air branch. Much of the story in the South Atlantic, Deputy Director of is autobiographical as the author, an experi• Joint Plans in the Ministry of Defence then, as enced pilot in the RCN, witnessed first-hand a rear-admiral, Naval Secretary to the First many of the events covered in the book. Some Lord of the Admiralty, finally appointment as 200 photographs, many from private collec• Flag Officer Second-in-Command of the tions, complement the text most effectively. Western Fleet flying his vice-admiral's flag in Soward begins by tracing the RCN's bid HMS Tiger. to create a naval air branch during the latter This, then, is an account of how one stages of World War I. Unfortunately, post• naval officer "faced the music" so to speak, war retrenchment and the lack of a clear-cut and with considerable success. Still, it is defence policy sealed the fate of the nascent much more than that. Hayes was a sensitive service. Soward then chronicles the re-birth of and perceptive naval officer,and he has devel• Canadian naval aviation during World War II. oped his theme with care and skill. The During the war the Royal Canadian Navy 116 The Northern Mariner

loaned personnel to man HMS Nabob and air station and the carrier, while being HMS Puncher, Royal Navy escort carriers on restricted to this percentage level." (p. 164) lend-lease from the United States. As Soward The latter interpretation is the generally notes, two factors explain the re-birth of accepted view. In 1945, just prior to the Canadian naval aviation: the desire of the creation of the naval air branch it was decided Allies — and by implication the RCN — to that the peace-time strength of the RCN close the mid-ocean air gap, and manpower would be 10,000 ratings, all ranks, and that shortages in the RN. Soward does not empha• the air component would comprise 11 per cent size strongly enough, however, that the propo• of the total complement. sals to acquire carriers and create a separate There are also troublesome minor errors. naval air branch came at the insistence of For example, Soward asserts that in April senior Canadian naval officers. He implies 1948 Acting Commodore H.N. Lay assumed that the RCN, as the junior service, responded the post of Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff to RN requests to man the two escort carriers. (ACNS) (Plans) and (Air) "thereby providing In fact, the request was orchestrated by senior for the first time, a degree of aviation back• Canadian naval officers through the Admiralty ground input to the Naval Board." (p. 110) to ensure that the Canadian government would Lay's penchant for naval aviation is well respond positively to the RN's request for known and he certainly influenced Naval assistance. The Canadian government's deci• Board decisions much earlier than Soward sion to man and then exchange the two escort acknowledges. Lay was the author of the sem• carriers for two light fleet carriers for service inal staff study that led to the creation of the in the Pacific theatre ensured the formal Canadian naval air branch during World War creation of the Royal Canadian Naval Air II. He also served as the Commanding Officer Service on 19 December, 1945. of HMS Nabob before he assumed the post of The problems experienced by the naval Director of Plans (DOP) in December 1945, air branch in the years immediately following serving in that post until April 1948. Also the war are attributed to several factors, not disturbing is the number of grammatical er• the least of which is the problem of dual rors. Readers are inundated with one-sentence control — sharing of the naval air station with paragraphs, misspelled words, and awkward the RCAF. Soward, a harsh critic of the sentence structure. Such errors should have RCAF's attempts to kill naval aviation, notes been caught before the book went to print. "the RCAF was granted the funding, manage• Despite these criticisms the book has ment and control of all naval air shore-based important strengths. It will be a good read for facilities and supporting air services, including anyone who wants to know what life was like such significant sections as air stores and during the formative years in the naval air major aircraft repairs and overhaul." (p. 58) branch. Soward regales the reader with num• Soward questions the wisdom of the RCN erous anecdotes of life at the naval air sta• negotiating team for entering into such an tions, aboard the carriers, flying incidents, agreement with the RCAF, especially since training, ceremonial duties and the changing dual control of the Fleet Air Arm was a nature of the naval air branch itself. One disastrous experiment. "That this arrangement anecdote in particular stands out. In 1953, was ever allowed to be repeated is incred• during Exercise Mariner, fifty-two NATO ible!" (p. 58) Later, however, he observes that aircraft had just launched from two USN "11% of the total naval complement [in 1950] carriers and HMCS Magnificent when fog was now composed of aviation personnel, descended upon the fleet. Ten aircraft man• indicated just how unrealistic it had been to aged to land aboard the carriers before the assume that Naval Aviation could simulta• weather closed in completely. This left forty- neously meet the manning requirements of the two aircraft, including nine RCN aircraft, Book Reviews 117 airborne. The aircrews spent the better part of military bureaucracy, particularly that of the the afternoon circling the fleet waiting for the US Navy, successfully fended off the direc• weather to clear. After four hours, and with tion of the US Congress to adopt the same no improvement expected in the weather, the aircraft as the US Air Force (ultimately the decision was made to ditch the aircraft in the General Dynamics F-16 Falcon) in its selec• cold waters of the north Atlantic. As the tion of a fighter to augment its fleet defence aircraft proceeded to the ditching point the F-14 Tomcats. fog began to lift and immediately the order The book traces the genesis of the F-18, was given for all aircraft to return to the presents a number of extensive analyses of its carriers. The pilots now faced several prob• capability in comparison with its stable-mates lems: low fuel reserves, poor visibility, pitch• and assesses the operational success of the ing decks, and fading light. Fortunately, for aircraft during the 1991 Gulf War. The auth• all concerned, all forty-two aircraft managed or's pro-lightweight leanings are quite appar• to land aboard the carriers, (pp. 260-81) ent and he paints an unflattering picture of the This book fills an important gap in the process whereby the F-18 programme won out literature and will be a welcome addition to over the lightweight advocates. That battle the general enthusiasts' library. aside, he also revisits the debate over the air• craft's performance capabilities and goes over Shawn Cafferky the familiar ground of weight increases and Ottawa, Ontario attendant shortcomings in range and payload. Stevenson consulted a wide range of James P. Stevenson. The Pentagon Paradox: sources in building his case: company and The Development Of The F-18 Hornet. Department of Defense internal records; the Annapolis, MD.: Naval Institute Press, 1993. published record of Congressional hearings xiv + 445 pp., photographs, diagrams, figures, into the development and acquisition of the F- tables, bibliography, notes, appendices, index. 18; interviews with many of the protagonists Cdn $34.95, US $24.95, cloth; ISBN 1- in the lightweight fighter/reformist camp; and 55750-775-9. Canadian distributor, Vanwell reports in the aviation press and mass media. Publishing, St. Catharines, ON. The result is a highly readable book on an aircraft programme which had its origins in a This is a remarkable book and its publication lightweight low-cost fighter for the USAF and was no doubt the source of concern, if not which was transmuted into a heavier and outrage, in the US Navy weapons procure• substantially higher cost naval fighter/attack ment community and in the Department of platform. It corroborates many of the revi• Defense. In fact so strong are Stevenson's sionist assessments about the accomplishments views that at least one attempt was reportedly of air power in the Gulf War and throws light made by USN officials connected with the F- on the nature of contemporary air-to-air 18 programme to review his manuscript combat and associated weaponry. It also before it went to press. illuminates the inter-service rivalries within The book is a critical examination of the the US military and the extent to which process whereby the US Navy developed, put history may be rewritten and facts distorted in into service and allegedly attempted to fund the pursuit of procurement goals. the re-design of the F-18 Hornet fighter/attack Therein lies one of the book's limitations. aircraft without following due process. The It is not a dispassionate examination. It discussion is placed in the context of a wider reflects a definite perspective and should be debate about the relative merits of "light• read with that caveat in mind. Much of the weight" fighters. A second and equally sig• analysis of the relative merits of lightweight nificant theme is the extent to which the fighters is based on the performance of air- 118 The Northern Mariner

craft employed during World War II, a period ican seapower, Alfred Thayer Mahan, is the in which true lightweight programmes such as unopposed inheritance of the USN. But the the Curtiss C W-21 and the Caudron 700 series author cautions that the world is not necessar• were unsuccessful. One might also criticize ily a safer place, and, desires for a "peace the now dated nature of the last chapter in dividend" notwithstanding, there lie in wait which Stevenson slips into the role of the future adversaries who will refuse to accept crusading journalist in discussing the proposed the verdict of American predominance. How development of the F-18E variant. Given the then should the superpower's naval forces time-lines involved, books like this are not an posture themselves to continue to influence effective means of influencing such processes. world affairs? In the event, the approval for the development According to Anderson, in the absence of work was given and the first flight is to take a high seas threat, "the difficulty... is in place in 1995. translating sea power into action capable of A Canadian reader may well wonder, directly influencing events ashore." (p. 16) after reading Stevenson's analysis of the His treatise examines the four fundamental shortcomings in the F-18 Hornet's capabil• legs of the new American military strategy, ities, to what extent these issues were con• expounded late in 1991 — forward presence, siderations when the F-18 was chosen over its crisis response, strategic deterrence, and single engined competitor, the F-16, for the reconstitution — and offers suggestions for a Canadian Armed Forces some fourteen years decisive naval role in each. The thrust ago. One might conclude that the F-18's twin throughout is that continued reliance on the engined configuration tipped the balance in its present "blue-water" force structure is inap• favour. Certainly a retrospective examination propriate and the USN must shift to a "lit• of the process in light of Stevenson's book toral" naval strategic focus, which can only be would make a fascinating study. One can only achieved through a closer wedding of the hope that today's Canadian Hornet operators existing Navy-Marine Corps relationship. are not the unwitting victims of the Pentagon Anderson's bias is evident: he is a serv• Paradox: "Benefits are inversely proportional ing Marine infantry officer concerned over the to the promise." propensity of Congress to determine new force structures by employing the budgetary Christopher Terry tool of "Desert Storm equivalents," a conflict Ottawa, Ontario in which amphibious warfare had little direct part. In fact, he argues, the Persian Gulf ex• Gary Anderson. Beyond Mahan: A Proposal perience may not be the best guide for the for a U.S. Naval Strategy in the Twenty-First future, since America's enemies may have Century. Newport, RI: Naval War College learned their own lessons of the superpower's Press, 1993; Newport Paper #5. viii + 50 pp., weaknesses: mine countermeasures, shallow- notes, glossary. Paper; available on request water anti-submarine operations, the integra• from: The Dean of Naval Warfare Studies tion of joint air operations, and reliance on (Code 3), Naval War College, 686 Cushing nearby operating bases. Instead, for a more Road, Newport, RI 02841-1207, USA. appropriate model, he reaches into America's own past to the Civil War, when the Union The title of this thought-provoking monograph Navy, originally structured for blue-water stems from the assumption that with the operations against Great Britain, had to devlop demise of the Soviet Union — or perhaps a new force capable of acquiring advanced more to the point, the demise of Russia's will bases for the Army by taking them from the to employ its fleet aggressively — control of enemy — a scenario not implausible in the the seas as advocated by the prophet of Amer• present era of fewer overseas American bases. Book Reviews 119

The bulk of the monograph is given over when they visited Halifax, Sydney and Qué• to a technical discussion of the Navy-Marine bec), they always include a number of smaller Corps structural reorganization, both in com• craft, variously rigged, some privately owned, position and command, required to assure that qualify as training ships by chartering to American predominance in the "littoral battle various youth organizations. Such a one is the space control area" (LBCA). It makes for a Helga Maria. Many of us dream of acquiring compelling, if not easy, discussion — readers an interesting and significant vessel and new to the jargon of political theory and making a modest living doing what rich yacht military operations and command relationships owners have to pay for: sailing about to should be warned that this is not the volume interesting places and meeting interesting and with which to enter the subject. The glossary like-minded people. Jack Lammiman did just helps, but not always (for example, the acro• that. A Master Mariner with a background of nym for "Aircraft carrier battle group" is the Norwegian Merchant Marine, the British correctly defined as "CVBG," but appears Royal Naval Reserve and long distance yacht annoyingly through the text as "CBVG"). delivery, he bought the oak-built purse seiner Still, it is a worthwhile read. This is more in 1984 and converted her to a schooner than a partisan plea to stave the budgetary rigged motor-sailer. The former fish-hold axe. It is a reasoned exposition of how naval became accommodation and soon enough power can remain a relevant influence on the sports-fishing and youth-group charters were course of the post-Cold War world. Anderson coming in to keep the vessel operating. offers an appealing model for any armed When Mrs. Whelan came on the scene, forces facing restructuring, and not just of the the skipper had just conceived the idea of a world's policeman. One can only hope they voyage to honour the memories of the two will rise above petty interservice rivalries to Captains William Scoresby (father and son), assure they can reach "beyond Mahan." arctic explorers and cartographers, whose fame, he believed, had been rather eclipsed by Richard H. Gimblett that other famous Whitby seaman, Captain Blackbum Hamlet, Ontario James Cook. The first plan was to go to Greenland, but because of ice conditions that Edna Whelan. The Helga Maria. Whitby, UK: year (1991), Jan Mayen was chosen instead. Caedmon of Whitby, 1992 [order from: To add spice to the voyage, because the Caedmon of Whitby, "Headlands," 128 Up- season was getting on and the ship inspectors gang Lane, Whitby, North Yorkshire Y021 appeared to be delaying a final inspection (for 3JJ]. 120 pp., map, photographs, illustrations. which all was ready), they sailed without a £10.50, paper; ISBN 0-905355-39-3. safety-certificate. Except for one young man, the entire crew was over 60 and included a This is a relaxing little book by a very nice Brigadier's widow and an Anglican priest. English lady who retired to the small North How this unlikely bunch of scalawags evaded Sea seaport of Whitby in Yorkshire. There patrolling ships and aircraft (real or imag• she came across the 65-foot former Danish ined), secretly replenished at sea and finally fishing vessel Helga Maria and its colourful arrived at Jan Mayen with a bronze plaque captain, Jack Lammiman. She went on a few commemorating the Scoresbys, I leave to the short cruises, helped out on board and event• reader. Mrs. Whelan went along as far as the ually became the chronicler of the voyage Shetlands. She thoroughly enjoyed all her described in this book: an expedition to Jan time at sea and was able to complete her story Mayen Island. of the voyage from the logbook and the When the world's Tall Ships go on their accounts of the rest of the crew. To continue periodic peregrinations as a fleet (as in 1984 to avoid detection, on the return voyage they 120 The Northern Mariner

changed the hull colour from white to black Culler, who had built a replica in 1929 of and finally arrived in triumph at Whitby, Joshua Slocum's Spray. Integrity was built as escorted by yachts and fishing boats. Event• Howland's personal yacht, and embodied ually Captain Lammiman was charged and much of Spray in her lines and construction, fined a modest sum: it was worth it! including her unique steering arrangement. Edna Whelan has a sense of history, a Launched in 1962, the elegant fifty-two-foot, gift for historical description and a keen eye thirty-ton schooner had all the resources of for natural beauty. Her book gave me great the Concordia yard behind her. Few yachts pleasure and made me determined to see were ever built with such loving attention to Whitby next time I am in England. Perhaps materials and detail. During her eight years the Helga Maria will be there too. under Howland's ownership, Integrity became a familiar sight in American East Coast Douglas Maginley waters, and so popular that copies of her were Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia built in fibreglass in two sizes by other manu• facturers. Frank Mulville. Schooner Integrity. London: In 1970 Integrity was sold to a charter Seafarer Books, 1979, 1992. 169 pp., illustra• company; after departing Moorhead City on a tions, maps, photographs. Cdn $15.95, paper; voyage to Grenada, she was overwhelmed by ISBN 0-85036-425-6. Distributed in Canada a Force Nine gale and damaged by a rogue by Nimbus Books, Halifax and in the United wave some four hundred miles into the North States by Sheridan House, Dobbs Ferry, NY. Atlantic. The crew was rescued by a passing freighter and taken to Bermuda; Integrity was The intriguing tale of the schooner Integrity left a drifting, abandoned hulk at the mercy of begins with the author's solo trans-Atlantic the windswept ocean until she was found a voyage on his modest but sturdy ten-ton gaff- month later by Geoffrey Hines in his yacht rigged cutter Iskra to Puerta Plata in the Captain Cap. Hines and his mate, Les Hum• Dominican Republic in 1974, and his chance mel, took her in tow to Turks Island with the meeting with a man named Bill, who sug• intent of salvaging her. However, relations gested that they voyage over to Turks Island, between Hines and Hummel deteriorated about a hundred miles to the north. It was during the tow over salvage-related matters. during this short trip that Bill told Mulville Upon arriving at Turks Island, Hummel about Integrity which, at that time, was lying slipped the tow and veered the wreck off in a at Turks in a derelict condition. In recounting new direction. Only after local police cleared his first glimpse of Integrity as she swung at up the affair did Integrity arrive at her anchor at Hawk's Nest, he describes how the Hawk's Bay anchorage. A series of costly unmistakable signs of her class, her polish, legal entanglements and long, fruitless negoti• her sweet sheer, the lift and flare of her bow, ations ensued. These had not actually been the rounded contours of her stem, the dignity settled when Integrity sank mysteriously at her of her curving forefoot were all wasted to the mooring, at which point the Crown, whose ravages of the sea, a once-magnificent vessel property she had become after the sinking, now at the end of her resources. sold her for one dollar. Integrity passed Mulville fills us in with the fascinating through several hands, losing her hardware in and exciting story of the design, construction the process. When Mulville entered the pic- and career of the schooner Integrity, a story tore, she belonged to Mr. Bamber who had which embraces the personalities of her orig• bought her for a thousand dollars. inal owner, Waldo Howland, who once owned Mulville planned to tow her to Cat the Concordia Boat Yard in Dartmouth, Island. While making her ready, he found, Massachusetts, and her designer, Captain still on board, the bronze steering-wheel Book Reviews 121

"boss" nut that had connected Integrity's out and stored until the next sailing season, or steering wheel to its shaft. The large and the fact that Small Craft Warnings are not beautifully crafted "boss" nut was a simple used in Newfoundland, as well as a list of the reminder of the quality of excellence that had summer events around the island, like the once been associated with the schooner. Rec• Great Lobster Boil in Lewisporte. ognizing it as an object that might be of The organisation is geographical, starting sentimental value to someone, he placed the at Portugal Cove in Conception Bay and "boss" nut in a box for safe-keeping. In the going counterclockwise around the island to end, the towing venture to Cat Island was not St. John's. In each location a description is successful; Integrity sank near Turks Passage. provided of the approach, the docking facil• Months later, while cruising in Iskra ities and the anchoring areas. Mills very through Scotland's Firth of Inverness, Mul- sensibly advises when the cruiser should seek ville had an astonishing chance meeting with local knowledge. Where appropriate, shore Waldo Howland. It was here that Howland side facilities are indicated. Since many loca• would learn the complete story of Integrity. It tions lack extensive provisioning facilities, the was also here that Mulville was able to pres• cruiser will have to plan provisioning stops ent to Howland and his wife the "boss" nut well in advance. At several locations Mills that he had retrieved from Integrity. One can suggest the fish processing plant as a source only imagine the silent, sober reaction. of water and ice. The state of each fish plant This is a particularly well-written tale by should be checked in advance as most of the someone who knows ships and the sea, and plants may work only a few weeks each year how to write about both. It is a worthy book in good times. Given the current state of the indeed, a touching tale and an intensely fishery, many plants are not operating at all. gripping narrative. Most of the descriptions are short, as might be expected in a book that covers all of R.F. Latimer Newfoundland in under 170 pages. For sever• Dartmouth, Nova Scotia al areas Mills provides some local historical lore. However, allowances should be made for Rob Mills. Coastal Cruising Newfoundland. inaccuracies, and tolerant readers will keep in St. John's, NF: Harry Cuff Publications, 1993. mind that this is not a history textbook. 170 pp., appendices. $18.95 (+ $4 p&h), There are some things which are missing spiral-bound; ISBN 0-921191-81-2. here that are found in other cruising guides. Particularly irritating is the lack of sketch The island portion of the province of New• maps, aerial photos of the harbours, and foundland, with 6000 miles of coastline and colour pictures of marine and terrestrial hundreds of bays, harbours, and coves, is a wildlife. On the positive side, the book is perfect destination for those seeking new mercifully free of advertising. The two are cruising experiences. Rob Mills' stated pur• probably related. The book should probably pose is to supplement the Sailing Directions have been printed on more durable paper for Newfoundland and the Cruising Club of stock, since cruising guides are usually America's Cruising Guide to Newfoundland. exposed to the elements; it seems to me that He accomplishes his goal by focusing on what the book will have to last several seasons if cruising sailors need to know. The main part you are to make use of even half of it. of the book is describes over 240 locations If you are planning to visit the island this that anyone cruising the Newfoundland coast book should be handy to your nav station. might find worth a visit. Mills also provides useful information such as a list of Marine Roy Hostetter Service Centres where a boat can be hauled Comer Brook, Newfoundland